Skip to content

From the archives

Is Public Service Delivery Obsolete?

Why competition between civil servants, corporations, and non-profits is good for everyone

This Dear Green Place

Our latest last best hope

Promoting Democracy Abroad

Is it the right time for Canada to take on this file?

Peter Desbarats

Peter Desbarats spent 30 years as a print and TV journalist before being appointed dean of journalism at the University of Western Ontario. Now retired, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.

Articles by
Peter Desbarats

Something Rotten

A writer dubiously equates the sins of a reporter with those of a politician November 2004
“Thank you,” Brian Mulroney said in his usual polite way when Karlheinz Schreiber passed over the large envelope containing $100,000 in cash. “Thank you very much.” That first paragraph in A Secret Trial: Brian Mulroney, Stevie Cameron and the Public Trust, William Kaplan’s second book about the former prime minister, is clear, succinct and…

Moguls of Winnipeg

Two books examine the controversial Asper media legacy January–February 2009
The first of these two books, Peter C. Newman’s Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada’s Media Mogul, is very confusing, to say the least, which may explain why one of Izzy Asper’s three children (David) would have nothing to do with it. It illustrates the pitfalls involved in writing biographies of people you…