journalist

The Canadian Press news agency, 1983-2014

Reporter and editor, Toronto 1983-87; night news editor, Ottawa 1987-88; business editor, Toronto 1988-1990; Atlantic news editor, Halifax 1990-1996; Atlantic bureau chief, Halifax 1996-2003; deputy bureau chief, Ottawa 2003-2014

CBC Parliamentary bureau, 2014-2019

Online reporter, freedom-of-information specialist

author & editor

Murder in Renfrew County: The predator who left three women dead - and the justice system that failed to stop him (TORONTO: Lorimer, 2024) Available now.

The story of the September 2015 murders of three women in Ontario’s Renfrew County by a violent misogynist, and how the justice system ignored all the warning signals.

Mass Murder, Police Mayhem - The Mass Casualty Commission: The Facts, The Findings, and What Must Be Done (HALIFAX: Formac Publishing Co. Ltd., 2023) ORDER

A layperson’s guide to the report that explains how the senseless tragedy in Portapique, N.S., happened, and how we can prevent such violence in the future. My substack newsletter contains updates on this story since the book was published in August 2023. Also, see review in the LRC here.

Moscow Despatches: Inside Cold War Russia (TORONTO: Lorimer, 1987), edited with William Kaplan. OUT OF PRINT

An edited collection of diplomatic correspondence by John Watkins, Canada’s ambassador to Moscow 1954-56. The book also chronicles an elaborate KBG blackmail attempt against Watkins. Based primarily on documents obtained under the Access to Information Act. In early 2022, I published an important update to this story, based on additional documents obtained under access to information.

In a Crystal Land: Canadian Explorers in Antarctica (TORONTO: University of Toronto Press, 1994). OUT OF PRINT

The stories of more than a dozen Canadians who helped explore Antarctica, from the 1890s to the 1950s, including aviators, geologists, a glaciologist, and a soldier. Based on logbooks, letters, interviews. For Antarctiphiles, here’s a missing chapter from the book, about Canadian pilot Peter Borden St. Louis, who flew a British rescue mission on the Antarctic Peninsula in the early 1950s. The editor excised the story from the manuscript, saying the book was getting too long.

Cargo of Lies: The True Story of a Nazi Double Agent in Canada (TORONTO: University of Toronto Press, 1997; paperback 2014). IN PRINT

The story of Watchdog, the RCMP code name for Werner Alfred Waldemar von Janowski, a Nazi spy who was caught and enrolled in an RCMP double-agent operation. Based primarily on documents obtained under the Access to Information Act.

Deadly Frontiers: Disaster and Rescue on Canada’s Atlantic Seaboard (FREDERICTON: Goose Lane Editions, 2001) IN PRINT

True stories of land, sea and air rescue operations following disasters in Atlantic Canada. Based on frontline reporting, interviews, and documents obtained under the Access to Information Act.

miscellaneous

1978: Hons BA (Hist), York University, Toronto; 1981: MA (Hist), University of Toronto.

MA thesis (1981): “Canadian Women in Politics: The Case of the Ontario CCF, 1940-1950” (unpublished). One chapter was revised and published as “Women in the Ontario C.C.F., 1940-1950,” Ontario History, vol. 74, no. 4 (December, 1982), 258-83. My 2022 essay posted on activehistory.ca, about feminist Rae Luckock (1893-1975), also drew on some of this research.

Research articles on Canadian history:

“Industrial Strategy and Manufacturing Growth in Toronto, 1880-1910,” Ontario History, vol. 76, no. 3 (September, 1984), 199-232.

Entries in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (William Mellis Christie, George Gooderham, Richard Sugden Williams, Robert Jaffray); and The Canadian Encyclopedia (William Mellis Christie, Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, Robert Phillip Kaplan, Robert James Manion, Barbara Jean McDougall, Sir Charles Seymour Wright, Henry Perrin Beatty)

Conducted seminars for journalists on effective use of the Access to Information Act for the CBC, Canadian Press, Associated Press, Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), Global News, the Edmonton Journal, St. John’s Telegram, Holland College, Carleton University, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), and many others. Panelist at conferences organized by the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Access and Privacy Association, the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, CAJ, etc.

Board member of World Press Freedom Canada.

Draft memoir, A Genuine Cause for Alarm, available for review by agents/publishers.