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Mark Bourrie (born 1957 or 1958)[1] is a Canadian lawyer, author, and journalist. He has worked as a contract lecturer at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. In 2020, his biography of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, won the RBC Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction.[2][1]
Bourrie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Waterloo.[3] He also holds a diploma in public policy and administration from the University of Guelph, a master's degree in journalism from Carleton University, a doctorate in Canadian media history from the University of Ottawa, and a law degree in from the University of Ottawa.[4] He is a member of the Ontario bar.[5]
Bourrie's PhD thesis was on Canada's World War II press censorship system and was published by Douglas & McIntyre as "The Fog of War".[6][7]
He worked for two decades as a freelance journalist and feature writer, primarily for The Globe and Mail from 1981 to 1989 and the Toronto Star from 1989 to 1999 and sporadically since then, and maintained a blog.[8] He was Parliamentary correspondent for the Law Times from 1994 until 2006. He also wrote for the InterPress Service, the United Nations-sponsored news and feature service. By the late 1990s, he had branched out from newspaper freelance work to book and magazine writing. He won a 1999 National Magazine Award gold award for his Ottawa City Magazine article, "The System That Killed Santa"[9] and the Ontario Community Newspaper Association's award for 2007 Columnist of the Year for his work in the Ottawa City Journal.[10]
From 2006 to 2009, Bourrie was a lecturer at Concordia University teaching journalism and media studies.[11] Bourrie became a contract lecturer in Carleton University's history department and the University of Ottawa's Canadian studies department.[12][13] He was also a member of Canada's Parliamentary Press Gallery and an expert and author on propaganda and censorship.[13]
In a 2012 article, Bourrie stated that the Chinese government-owned Xinhua News Agency asked him to collect information on the Dalai Lama by exploiting his journalistic access to the Parliament of Canada.[14][15][16] Bourrie stated that he was asked to write for Xinhua in 2009 and sought advice from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), but was ignored. Bourrie stated that the request for information about the Dalai Lama caused him to refuse to continue to write articles for Xinhua.
In 2021, Bourrie, was the lawyer retained by Ottawa Life Magazine to defend against a defamation lawsuit filed by then Ottawa Police Service chief Peter Sloly. Sloly alleged that an article published by the magazine falsely and maliciously painted him as mismanaging misogyny problems within the force.[17]
Bourrie is originally from the North Simcoe area of Ontario.[18][19] He is married to Marion Van de Wetering, a federal government lawyer.[20]
Bourrie is a bestselling author and has written several non-fiction books.[18] The Globe and Mail described Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, his biography of French fur trader and adventurer Pierre Radisson, as "a significant contribution to the history of 17th-century North America".[21] The book won the RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction in 2020, the last time the prize was awarded.[2]