The Rebel Sibling

As a kid growing up in Toronto in the 1950s, I was well aware, as everyone was, of E.P. Taylor, Canada’s greatest entrepreneur of the era. Photos of Edward Plunket Taylor in a top hat appeared regularly in the Toronto Star and the Telegram. He gave us Don Mills with its curlicue streets, the racehorse Northern Dancer, beer and a performing arts centre named after his beer company.

As the child of dedicated communists, I knew that my parents had nothing but disdain for this man, who symbolized everything they opposed. My father took particular pride, however, in telling me that E.P. Taylor’s brother was a communist. To my dad, it was self-evident that while a great entrepreneur might be clever, he was not half so clever as a communist, someone who could have made a great fortune had he not found it socially reprehensible, not to mention a dull way to spend a life.

I naturally assumed that E.P. Taylor’s brother must be the really...