Author: John Ibbitson
Profile: John Ibbitson is a Canadian journalist. He has been a columnist and political writer for The Globe and Mail since 1999. He is born in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada.
In 1979 he graduated with a B.A in English from the University of Toronto. He pursued a career as a playwright after university. Mayonnaise was his most notable play which debuted in Toronto, Ontario at the Phoenix Theatre in 1980. In 1987 he entered the University of Western Ontario and graduated one year later with an M.A. in journalism and joined the Ottawa Citizen as a columnist and city reporter. From the year 1995 to 2001 he covered politics in Ontario and worked for The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Southam News and Ottawa Citizen. In May 2007 he moved back to Washington as columnist and returned in September 2009 to Ottawa as bureau chief. He became chief political writer of the paper in December 2010 besides which he appeared on news programs on Canadian television as political analyst and pundit. He became a writer-at-large in the year 2015. He is married to Grant Burke. He writes and lives in Ottawa.
Writing style: John Ibbitson’s genre is non-fiction and fiction and covers subjects including Canadian history and Canadian politics. Main interests of John besides writing include reading (mostly biography and history), music and playing poker with reporters (losing most of the time).
Published Texts:
Publications
Non-fiction
1997 – Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution
2001 – Loyal No More: Ontario’s Struggle for a Separate Destiny
2005 – The Polite Revolution: Perfecting the Canadian Dream
2009 – Open & Shut: Why America Has Barrack Obama and Canada Has Stephen Harper
2013 – The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business and Culture and What It Means for Our Future
2015 – Stephen Harper, a biography of Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister
2019 – Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline
Fiction
1991 – Jeremy’s War: 1812
1993 – The Night Hazel Came to Town
2008 – The Landing
Awards and Acknowledgements:
2016 – Won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
Nominated for the Donner Prize, the National Newspaper Award, B.C. National Book Award, the Trillium Book Award and the City of Toronto Book Award