Remembering Olivier Dundas

Olivier Dundas is remembered by his friends at the Ryerson School of Journalism as someone who cared deeply, listened patiently, and laughed easily.

 “Oli” lost his life in tragic circumstances on Jan. 8, 2022.

He was in his second year of the program.

His mother, Annie Bergeron, said Oli loved sports in general, but hockey most of all. He played goal and dreamed of a career as a hockey journalist.

Bergeron said he would have been a very good one; that his powers of observation and his ability to analyze the game were exceptional.

“He had a really amazing understanding of the game and of the set plays,” she said. “As a goalie he saw the set play come toward him, and he was a really analytical person. A team would do the set play once, and then when they did it again, he knew what the play [would be]. And then he would understand after playing against these teams and the same people for years, he knew that a particular kid was strong on the back end on the left-hand side, so he knew where that kid typically liked to score.”

Oli started playing hockey at age seven and played right up to the competitive ‘A’ level in the Greater Toronto Hockey League. As a teenager, he added basketball to his sporting repertoire, and became skilled there too, according to his mom.

Prof. jagg carr-locke taught Oli in her lab section of the course Producing the News in the fall 2021 semester. It was a small section of just 20 students. Carr-locke said people got to know each other quite well, even on Zoom. And at least one student wanted to get to know Oli even better.

“We did group work toward the end of the semester: groups of three. The groups were chosen randomly. As we were approaching the final week of group work, one student came to me on Slack and asked me to engineer it so she could be in Oli’s group, because she thought he was cute. And of course I did! I don’t know if Oli was any the wiser, but apparently it went very well.”

Carr-locke also remembers a 1:1 Zoom session with Oli, where they discovered a shared love of cats. She asked to meet his cat. Oli brought Baloo into the frame and stroked him fondly while the cat lolled about with eyes half-closed, having been woken from a sound sleep for his cameo. Baloo, a Blue-point Siamese, was named for Baloo Bear from The Jungle Book, who was a similar colour.

Oli loved his dog Cybèle also. Cybèle is what is known as a “potcake” dog: a rescue from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where stray dogs eat the discarded “potcake” that forms the unappetizing crust portion of a common local rice and bean dish.

Annie Bergeron said Oli was, from a very young age, very comfortable in front of a crowd, often playing the MC at school events. She recalls a play in primary school where he had a major speaking part as The Gardener, who spoke to each flower as he went around watering them.

Oli’s mom describes their closest Leslieville neighbours as their “village family,” a very tight-knit group of five or six families whose children grew up together, and where friendships amongst the parents, as well as the kids, run deep.

Carr-locke recalls Oli doing a story for her class about one of his life-long neighbourhood village friends, a singer-songwriter named Lily Davies. Davies has struck it big recently with her song “FMRN.” Oli’s story was about how the song’s explicit title and lyrics have put the singer-songwriter into a dispute with TikTok, which keeps pulling the song down from the platform.

During a 1:1 Zoom call with Oli to discuss the story, they shared laughs trying to imagine how he might reference the full song title in his story, without offending anyone. (Solution: stick with the initials only!)

The family — mom Annie, dad David, and Oli’s younger brother Basile, now 16 — enjoyed trips around Canada and into the U.S.: beach and camping vacations in summer, winter camping and ice fishing in winter. Bergeron said one of Oli’s favourite trips was with her alone, when he was 17, and they went to New York City.

Bergeron said Oli loved Ryerson and the journalism program. She said she was extremely proud that he had chosen to attend Ryerson, her own alma mater (Class of ’93, Interior Design). Bergeron serves on the School’s Professional Advisory Council and continues to mentor students in Interior Design at Ryerson, just as she has done nearly every year since she was pregnant with Oli in 2001.

Brittany Boston, a classmate in the fall semester, talked about the time she and Oli chatted for three additional hours after the four-hour lab section had ended, until, as she said, “Zoom kicked us out and we moved over to Instagram.

“We had a bunch of laughs and got to know a lot about one another. We shared stories about our lives and related on the struggles we faced. He made me feel not so alone in my emotions and feelings. He empathized with me and I felt heard. After talking with him, I felt like I had a new friend.”

Those kinds of comments are rife in the virtual spaces where Oli’s friends have written their many tributes: “impossible not to like,” “very sweet guy,” “funny and kind,” “happy and positive.”

Oli’s mom Annie said she and the family are taking great consolation in the words of his many friends.

“This is the unknown [as a parent], the dark side of the moon. You don’t know your children when they’re out in the world, these children that you’re trying to guide into the world. So it’s really beautiful to hear that.”

The family has asked that anyone wishing to honour Oli’s memory may do so through a memorial donation to the CAMH Foundation (external link) .

As well, a GoFundMe (external link)  page has been established in remembrance of Oli.