Peter Hullett Desbarats, OC (July 2, 1933 – February 11, 2014) was a Canadian author, playwright and journalist. ^[1] He was also the dean of journalism at the University of Western Ontario (1981–1997), ^{[1] [2]} a former commissioner in the Somalia Inquiry ^{[1] [2]} and a former Maclean-Hunter chair of Communications Ethics at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario.

Until his death from Alzheimer's disease, ^[3] he lived in a heritage home with his actress wife Hazel in the East Woodfield Heritage Conservation District in London, Ontario. ^[3]

Early life

Peter Desbarats was born in 1933 to Hullett Desbarats (a descendant of the printer and publisher George-Édouard Desbarats) ^[2] and Margaret Rettie. ^[4] The family lived on Connaught Avenue in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal, where Peter attended Loyola High School. ^[2]

Career

Before he was appointed dean of UWO's journalism school, which he successfully fought to save in the 1990s when UWO wanted to discontinue the program, ^[2] he worked as a print and television journalist for 30 years, ^[5] starting as a copy boy with the Canadian Press, ^[2] Canada's national news co-operative, in his home town of Montreal. ^[3]

Desbarats worked in London's Fleet Street for Reuters news agency, ^{[2] [3]} as a political reporter and foreign correspondent for the Montreal Star ^[5] and as national affairs columnist for the Toronto Star. ^[1] In the 1960s and early 1970s he hosted the supper-hour news and current affairs show on Montreal television station CBMT, ^[3] and in the 1970s was co-anchor and Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Global Television Network, ^[1] winning the 1977 ACTRA Award for best news broadcaster.

Desbarats wrote 13 books, including René: A Canadian in Search of Country, a best-selling biography of René Lévesque; ^{[1] [2]} Somalia Cover-Up: A Commissioner's Journal, a book about his stint on the Somalia Inquiry;, ^[2] and Guide to Canadian News Media, a standard journalism text; ^[5] as well as several children's books ^[6] and a 2002 stage play, Her Worship, about controversial London mayor Dianne Haskett. ^[3] With the cartoonist Aislin, he co-wrote one of the first books of comics history in Canada, The Hecklers: A History of Canadian Political Cartooning and a Cartoonists' History of Canada. He was later a contributor to The Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and The London Free Press, ^[3] as well as an active community volunteer in London. ^[3]

In 2006, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. ^{[1] [2]}

References

External links

• Peter Desbarats at IMDb