Stevie Cameron
Encyclopedia
Stevie Cameron is an award-winning Canadian
investigative journalist and best-selling author. Born in Belleville, Ontario
in 1943, she now lives in Toronto
with her husband, David Cameron, a professor at the University of Toronto
. They have two daughters; both Toronto-based screenwriters.
, worked for the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa
in the 1960s, attended graduate school at University College London
, England for three years and taught English literature at Trent University
.
After a year at Le Cordon Bleu
Cooking School in Paris
in 1975, she began working as a food writer and in 1977 became the food editor of the Toronto Star
; a year later she moved to the Ottawa Journal
as Lifestyles editor. She later became the Ottawa Citizen
’s Lifestyles and Travel editor; four years later she joined a new investigative journalism unit at the Citizen and also became a national political columnist.
public affairs program The Fifth Estate
but returned to the Globe in 1991as a freelance columnist and feature writer. Her second book, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, was published in 1994. The book raised questions about the ethics of former Progressive Conservative
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
and his alleged involvement in secret commissions paid by Karlheinz Schreiber
to members of the Government of Canada
in exchange for then-crown corporation Air Canada
's purchase of a large number of Airbus
jets. It became the number one best selling non-fiction book in Canada in both 1994 and 1995. In 1995, Cameron joined Maclean’s as a contributor for investigative stories.
In 1998 she published her third book, Blue Trust, and the following year she founded Elm Street, a national general interest magazine, but continued to write investigative features for Maclean’s. Three years later she resigned from Elm Street, continuing as a columnist, in order to research and write The Last Amigo, a book published in 2001about the Airbus affair
. It won a Crime Writers of Canada award as the Best True Crime Book of the Year.http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwcNew/pages/awards%20-pastawards%20list.html
She began researching the Robert Pickton
murder case in British Columbia in 2002 and published her first book on the case, The Pickton File, in 2007. Cameron has completed her second book about the Pickton case, On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver’s Missing Women, which was published by Knopf in the summer of 2010 when a publication ban on the case was lifted after an appeal to Supreme Court of Canada
upheld the trial jury’s guilty verdict. As well as documenting the botched police investigation that finally led to Pickton's arrest, the book contains important insights into why Pickton offered help to some of the woman he picked up as prostitutes while brutally murdering others, and how he decided who he would kill. On the Farm was nominated for the 2011 Charles Taylor Prize
and won the 2011 Arthur Ellis Award
for best non-fiction crime book.
Cameron has also been a contributing editor to Maclean's
magazine, a monthly columnist and a contributor to The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, the Southam News Service
, Saturday Night
magazine, the Financial Post
, Chatelaine
, and Canadian Living
.
Cameron has lectured on journalism schools across the country, and in 2008 she spent the fall term as Irving Chair in Media at St. Thomas University
’s journalism school in Fredericton. http://w3.stu.ca/stu/media/news.aspx?id=3836&returnId=48
In 2004, the The Globe and Mail
turned the tables on its former investigative reporter by running a series of articles by lawyer William Kaplan
claiming that Cameron had worked as a confidential informant for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
during its investigation of the Airbus affair. Cameron vigorously denied the allegations which, if true, would have compromised her credibility as a journalist http://www.regrettheerror.com/2004/10/stevie_cameron_.html. In his 2004 book A Secret Trial: Brian Mulroney, Stevie Cameron and the Public Trust, Kaplan outlined evidence that illustrated the RCMP's perception of Cameron as a confidential RCMP informant. But in the spring of 2005, Chief Superintendent Al Matthews, the RCMP officer in charge of the Airbus investigation, admitted in sworn testimony before Judge Edward Then that almost all the allegations he made about Cameron in a search warrant used by Kaplan for his information were untrue. Matthews admitted that Cameron had had very few contacts with the RCMP, contradicting assertions he'd made in court that she had had several hundred. Matthews also admitted that Cameron was telling the truth when she said any information she'd shared with the RCMP was already in the public domain and that the information she shared was of little help to their investigation.
On February 14, 2007, Cameron appeared before the Canadian House of Commons
Ethics Committee
in their examination of the Mulroney Airbus Settlement. She confirmed that everything she knows on the subject had been documented in her books. Cameron also made a personal statement that she not a police informant and that any information she had given to the RCMP was already in the public domain at the time. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080214.wmulroney0214/BNStory/National/home http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080214.wmulroney0214/BNStory/National/home Cameron was subpoenaed by the Oliphant Commission [www.oliphantcommission.ca] as a potential witness for the public inquiry called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper but ultimately was not called as a witness.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
investigative journalist and best-selling author. Born in Belleville, Ontario
Belleville, Ontario
Belleville is a city located at the mouth of the Moira River on the Bay of Quinte in Southern Ontario, Canada, in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. It is the seat of Hastings County, but is politically independent of it. and the centre of the Bay of Quinte Region...
in 1943, she now lives in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
with her husband, David Cameron, a professor at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. They have two daughters; both Toronto-based screenwriters.
Early life and work
Born in Belleville, Ontario, Stevie Cameron has an honours B.A. in English from the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
, worked for the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
in the 1960s, attended graduate school at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, England for three years and taught English literature at Trent University
Trent University
Trent University is a liberal arts and science-oriented institution located along the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.The enabling legislation is the Trent University Act, 1962-63. The University was founded through the efforts of a citizens' committee interested in creating a...
.
After a year at Le Cordon Bleu
Le Cordon Bleu
Le Cordon Bleu is the world's largest hospitality education institution, with 35 schools on five continents serving 20,000 students annually. Its primary education focus is on hospitality management and the culinary arts...
Cooking School in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1975, she began working as a food writer and in 1977 became the food editor of the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
; a year later she moved to the Ottawa Journal
Ottawa Journal
The Ottawa Journal was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Ottawa, Ontario from 1885 to 1980.It was founded in 1885 by A. Woodburn as the Ottawa Evening Journal. Its first editor was John Wesley Dafoe who came from the Winnipeg Free Press. In 1886, it was bought by Philip Dansken Ross.The...
as Lifestyles editor. She later became the Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Canada. According to the Canadian Newspaper Association, the paper had a 2008 weekly circulation of 900,197.- History :...
’s Lifestyles and Travel editor; four years later she joined a new investigative journalism unit at the Citizen and also became a national political columnist.
Career in journalism
In 1986 Cameron moved to Toronto as a national columnist and reporter for the Globe and Mail and published her first book, in 1989, called Ottawa Inside Out. In 1990 she become a host of the CBC TelevisionCanadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
public affairs program The Fifth Estate
The fifth estate
the fifth estate is a Canadian television newsmagazine, which airs on the English language CBC Television network. The name is a play on the fact that the media are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, and was chosen to highlight the program's determination to go beyond everyday news into...
but returned to the Globe in 1991as a freelance columnist and feature writer. Her second book, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, was published in 1994. The book raised questions about the ethics of former Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
and his alleged involvement in secret commissions paid by Karlheinz Schreiber
Karlheinz Schreiber
Friedrich Karlheinz Hermann Schreiber is a German and Canadian citizen, an industrialist, lobbyist, fundraiser, arms dealer and businessman...
to members of the Government of Canada
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
in exchange for then-crown corporation Air Canada
Air Canada
Air Canada is the flag carrier and largest airline of Canada. The airline, founded in 1936, provides scheduled and charter air transport for passengers and cargo to 178 destinations worldwide. It is the world's tenth largest passenger airline by number of destinations, and the airline is a...
's purchase of a large number of Airbus
Airbus
Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....
jets. It became the number one best selling non-fiction book in Canada in both 1994 and 1995. In 1995, Cameron joined Maclean’s as a contributor for investigative stories.
In 1998 she published her third book, Blue Trust, and the following year she founded Elm Street, a national general interest magazine, but continued to write investigative features for Maclean’s. Three years later she resigned from Elm Street, continuing as a columnist, in order to research and write The Last Amigo, a book published in 2001about the Airbus affair
Airbus affair
The Airbus affair refers to allegations of secret commissions paid to members of the Government of Canada during the term of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in exchange for then-crown corporation Air Canada's purchase of a large number of Airbus jets...
. It won a Crime Writers of Canada award as the Best True Crime Book of the Year.http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwcNew/pages/awards%20-pastawards%20list.html
She began researching the Robert Pickton
Robert Pickton
Robert William "Willie" Pickton of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada is a former pig farmer and serial killer convicted of the second-degree murders of six women. He is also charged in the deaths of an additional twenty women, many of them prostitutes and drug users from Vancouver's...
murder case in British Columbia in 2002 and published her first book on the case, The Pickton File, in 2007. Cameron has completed her second book about the Pickton case, On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver’s Missing Women, which was published by Knopf in the summer of 2010 when a publication ban on the case was lifted after an appeal to Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
upheld the trial jury’s guilty verdict. As well as documenting the botched police investigation that finally led to Pickton's arrest, the book contains important insights into why Pickton offered help to some of the woman he picked up as prostitutes while brutally murdering others, and how he decided who he would kill. On the Farm was nominated for the 2011 Charles Taylor Prize
Charles Taylor Prize
The Charles Taylor Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It is named for Charles Taylor, a noted Canadian historian and writer....
and won the 2011 Arthur Ellis Award
Arthur Ellis Awards
The Arthur Ellis Awards are a group of Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the Crime Writers of Canada for the best Canadian crime and mystery writing....
for best non-fiction crime book.
Cameron has also been a contributing editor to Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
magazine, a monthly columnist and a contributor to The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, the Southam News Service
CanWest News Service
Postmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
, Saturday Night
Saturday Night (magazine)
Saturday Night was a Canadian general interest magazine. It was founded in Toronto, Ontario in 1887.The publication was first established as a weekly broadsheet newspaper about public affairs and the arts, which was later expanded into a general interest magazine. The editor, Edmund E. Sheppard,...
magazine, the Financial Post
Financial Post
The Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post, although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s...
, Chatelaine
Chatelaine (magazine)
Chatelaine is an English-language Canadian magazine of women's lifestyles. Both Chatelaine and its French-language version, Châtelaine, are published monthly by Rogers Media, Inc., a division of Rogers Communications, Inc...
, and Canadian Living
Canadian Living
Canadian Living is a monthly Canadian lifestyle magazine, which publishes articles relating to food, fashion, crafts, and health and family advice....
.
Cameron has lectured on journalism schools across the country, and in 2008 she spent the fall term as Irving Chair in Media at St. Thomas University
St. Thomas University (New Brunswick)
St. Thomas University is jointly a public and Roman Catholic liberal arts university located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It offers degrees exclusively at the undergraduate level for approximately 3,000 students in the liberal arts, humanities, journalism, education, and social work....
’s journalism school in Fredericton. http://w3.stu.ca/stu/media/news.aspx?id=3836&returnId=48
Cameron and the Airbus Affair
Cameron became the focus of a campaign by Mulroney's defenders to discredit the allegations against him.In 2004, the The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
turned the tables on its former investigative reporter by running a series of articles by lawyer William Kaplan
William Kaplan
William Kaplan is a Canadian lawyer and writer.-Biography:William Kaplan is the son of Igor Kaplan and Cara Cherniak. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He went on to Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, where he graduated in 1983 with a...
claiming that Cameron had worked as a confidential informant for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
during its investigation of the Airbus affair. Cameron vigorously denied the allegations which, if true, would have compromised her credibility as a journalist http://www.regrettheerror.com/2004/10/stevie_cameron_.html. In his 2004 book A Secret Trial: Brian Mulroney, Stevie Cameron and the Public Trust, Kaplan outlined evidence that illustrated the RCMP's perception of Cameron as a confidential RCMP informant. But in the spring of 2005, Chief Superintendent Al Matthews, the RCMP officer in charge of the Airbus investigation, admitted in sworn testimony before Judge Edward Then that almost all the allegations he made about Cameron in a search warrant used by Kaplan for his information were untrue. Matthews admitted that Cameron had had very few contacts with the RCMP, contradicting assertions he'd made in court that she had had several hundred. Matthews also admitted that Cameron was telling the truth when she said any information she'd shared with the RCMP was already in the public domain and that the information she shared was of little help to their investigation.
On February 14, 2007, Cameron appeared before the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
Ethics Committee
Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics
The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is a permanent standing committee of the Canadian House of Commons that reports to the Parliament of Canada on issues related to ethics and the Access to Information Act. The committee may be referred to...
in their examination of the Mulroney Airbus Settlement. She confirmed that everything she knows on the subject had been documented in her books. Cameron also made a personal statement that she not a police informant and that any information she had given to the RCMP was already in the public domain at the time. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080214.wmulroney0214/BNStory/National/home http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080214.wmulroney0214/BNStory/National/home Cameron was subpoenaed by the Oliphant Commission [www.oliphantcommission.ca] as a potential witness for the public inquiry called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper but ultimately was not called as a witness.
Humanitarian work
Cameron serves on the board of Second Harvest in Toronto as well as on the board of Portland Place, an assisted housing project for homeless and underhoused people.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_16_27/ai_111934041/ In 1991 she helped found an Out of the Cold program for the homeless at her church, St. Andrew’s, in downtown Toronto, and has worked with many churches across Canada to set up similar programs. In 2004, she received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the Vancouver School of Theology, in part for her work with the homeless.http://www.canadiancentreinvestigates.org/?q=node/8Non-fiction
- Ottawa Inside Out (1989) [ISBN 0-00-637624-X]
- On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years (1994) [ISBN 0-921912-73-0]
- Blue Trust: The Author, the Lawyer, His Wife and Her Money (1998) [ISBN 155199027X]
- The Last Amigo: Karlheinz Schreiber and the Anatomy of a Scandal (2001) (with Harvey Cashore). [ISBN 1-55199-051-2]
- The Pickton File (2007) Knopf Canada. [ISBN 978-0-676-97953-4]
- On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women (2010) [ISBN 978-0-676-97584-0]
Awards
- 2011 Arthur Ellis Award for On The Farm, Best Crime Non-Fiction Book of the Year
- 2008 Irving Chair in Media, St. Thomas University, September–November, 2008 http://w3.stu.ca/stu/media/news.aspx?id=3836&returnId=48
- 2004 Honourary Doctorate of Divinity and convocation speaker, Vancouver School of Theology at UBC, for journalism and work with the homeless, Vancouver (May 3, 2004)
- 2003 Honourary Diploma & Commencement speaker, Loyalist College of Applied Arts and Technology, Belleville, June 2003, for journalism and community work
- 2003 City of Toronto Community Service Award for work with the homeless
- 2002 Arthur Ellis Award (Crime Writers’ of Canada) for The Last Amigo, Best Crime Non-Fiction Book of the Year (with Harvey Cashore) http://www.blackravenpress.com/awards2002.htm
- 1998 Business Book of the Year Merit Award for Blue Trust http://www.nbba.com
- 1998 Windsor Press Club: Golden Quill Award for journalism
- 1995 Periodical Marketers’ Awards: Book of the Year & Author of the Year, for On the Take
- 1988 Centre for Investigative Journalism award
External links
- Regret the Error: Stevie Cameron corrects The Globe Text of Cameron's letter to the editorLetter to the editorA letter to the editor is a letter sent to a publication about issues of concern from its readers. Usually, letters are intended for publication...
responding to the Globes allegations that she was an RCMP informant. - Stevie Cameron: street-side saviour of Canada's destitute - Canada 2003 article in the '"Catholic New Times profiling Cameron's work on the issue of homelessness.
- Stevie Cameron official website and blogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
- Author interview, online from CBC Words at Large
- Stevie Cameron online interview with THECOMMENTARY.CA, June 2007