Michael Terry HarrisCM[1] (born 1948) is a
Canadian investigative journalist, radio personality, documentary filmmaker, novelist, iPolitics columnist and the author of nine books.[2]
Born in
Toronto, Ontario, to Audrey McDonald (née Tilley) and James McDonald, Harris is a graduate of
York University in Toronto, and was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar (
University College in Dublin, Ireland). His work has sparked four Royal Commissions of Inquiry.
Harris went to Newfoundland in 1977, as a story editor for
CBC Televisionowned-and-operated stationCBNT's newscast Here and Now,[3] before becoming in 1986 the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of The Sunday Express weekly in
St. John's, nationally recognized as "the best little newspaper in Canada."[4] There he broke the Mount Cashel orphanage abuse story[5] and the Sprung Greenhouse
boondoggle.[4] Later he went on to become the Executive Director of News and Current Affairs for the Newfoundland Broadcasting Company, then owner of the local
CTV Television Network affiliate
CJON (NTV).
Harris was at one time a Queen's Park correspondent for the National Post,The Globe and Mail as Atlantic Bureau Chief and later a senior parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa.[2]
In Ottawa Harris hosted an afternoon
radio talk show, Michael Harris Live, on
Ottawa-based
CFRA, and was a columnist for The Ottawa Sun newspaper until March 2011.[6][7]Michael Harris Live on CFRA Ottawa was cancelled February 9, 2012.[8] He is now a columnist for the website iPolitics.
His 1986 book Justice Denied: The Law Versus Donald Marshall detailed the story of
Donald Marshall, Jr.’s wrongful conviction in 1972. His investigative journalism culminating in the book Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel, triggered the
Hughes Inquiry into the allegations of abuse at the
Mount Cashel Orphanage. Harris also authored Rare Ambition: The Crosbies of Newfoundland,Con Game: The Truth About Canada’s Prisons and Lament for an Ocean: The Collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery.
Elizabeth May, the executive director of the
Sierra Club of Canada called it "The definitive book on the
cod catastrophe ... After reading this book, you wouldn't trust
Fisheries and Oceans Canada with your aquarium".[9] His 1976 novel Outrider on Yonge Street was never published.[3]
Harris is married and has two daughters. As of 2011[update] he hosted Ottawa's annual "Alzheimers Flame of Hope Golf Tournament" (his mother, who died in 2009, suffered from the disease), and divided his time between his homes in Ottawa,
Ontario and
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. He was the visiting Irving Chair in Journalism at
St. Thomas University in New Brunswick.[10][3]
Rare Ambition: the Crosbies of Newfoundland was the 1994 winner of the TORGI Talking Book of the Year,[14] the Foundation for The Advancement of Canadian Letters Book of the Year Award[15]
The Prodigal Husband: the Tragedy of Helmuth and Hanna Buxbaum won the 1995
Arthur Ellis Awards / Prix Arthur Ellis prize for the best true crime book in Canada[16]
Lament for an Ocean: The Collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery was short listed for the
Donner Prize in 1998[17]
Michael Harris was awarded a Doctor of Laws by the Memorial University of Newfoundland for his "unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us."[18]
He was the visiting Irving Chair in Journalism at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick.[19]