Michael Harris Biography

Michael Harris is an award-winning Canadian author, investigative journalist, and radio personality who hosts an afternoon radio talk show on Ottawa-based CFRA, and is a columnist for the "Ottawa Sun" newspaper.

Born in Newfoundland, Canada in 1948, Harris is a graduate of York University in Toronto, and was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar (University College in Dublin, Ireland).

Formerly the publisher of "The Sunday Express" in St. John’s, Nfld., and later the Executive Director of News and Current Affairs for the Newfoundland Broadcasting Corporation, Harris was at one time a Queen’s Park correspondent for "The National Post".

Harris currently writes a column for "The Ottawa Sun" newspaper, and has hosted the weekday CFRA radio program "Michael Harris Live" since 2000.

He is also the author of such books as Justice denied: The Law Versus Donald Marshall (1986), Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel (Book of the Year, Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters, 1991), Rare Ambition: The Crosbies of Newfoundland (FACL Book of the Year and APBA Booksellers Choice Award 1993), Con Game: The Truth About Canada’s Prisons (2002), and Lament for an Ocean: The Collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery (1998), which was a national bestseller. 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 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with your aquarium".

To date, Harris' work has sparked four royal commissions of inquiry in Canada.

Harris, who is married and has two daughters, hosts Ottawa's annual "Alzheimers Flame of Hope Golf Tournament" (his mother suffers from the disease), and divides his time between his homes in Ottawa, Ontario and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.