Peter Gzowski: A Biography

Born in 1934, Peter Gzowski covered most of the last half of the century as a journalist and interviewer. This biography, the most comprehensive and definitive yet published, is also a portrait of Canada during those decades, beginning with Gzowski’s days at the University of Toronto’s The Varsity in the mid 1950s, through his years as the youngest-ever managing editor of Maclean’s in the 1960s and his tremendous success on CBC’s Morningside in the 1980s and 1990s, and ending with his stint as a Globe and Mail columnist at the dawn of the 21st century and his death in January 2002.

Gzowski saw eight Canadian Prime Ministers in office, most of whom he interviewed, and witnessed everything from the Quiet Revolution in Qubec to the growth of economic nationalism in Canada’s West. From the rise of state medicine to the decline of the patriarchy, Peter was there to comment, to resist, and to participate. Here was a man who was proud to call himself Canadian and who made millions of other Canadians realize that Canada was, in what he claimed was a Canadian expression, not a bad place to live.

Rae Fleming (1944–2022) was a historian and writer whose works include a biographies of Sir William Mackenzie, Peter Gzowski, and an edited collection of essays on biography. He was awarded the Fred Landon Award by the Ontario Historical Society for Best Book on Ontario's Regional History for The Railway King of Canada.