Mark Bourrie

Mark Bourrie (born 1957) is a Canadian author, blogger, journalist, and a doctoral student at the University of Ottawa. Born in Toronto and now a resident of Ottawa, Ontario, he has been a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1994.

Bourrie is also a fossil hunter, collector, and amateur paleontologist specializing in trilobites.

Education

Bourrie was a student at the University of Western Ontario before going to Ryerson University, where he studied journalism before taking a job with a Toronto daily newspaper. He finished his BA at the University of Waterloo in 1990[4]; earned a diploma in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Guelph; a Master's degree in journalism from Carleton University in 2004; and is a doctoral student in Canadian media history at the University of Ottawa. His doctoral work is on the press censorship system in Canada in the Second World War. His master's thesis was on the media's role in banning cannabis in Canada. His public policy and administration research focused on Canada's security systems.

Journalism career

Bourrie was a summer student reporter at the Hamilton Spectator and the London Free Press and a student reporter at the Globe and Mail before taking a job on the Toronto Sun in 1979 as assistant business editor and news reporter. Bourrie worked for two decades as a freelance news and feature writer, primarily for The Globe and Mail from 1981 to 1989, and the Toronto Star from 1989 to 1999. His freelance writing has also appeared in the Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Winnipeg Free Press, Windsor Star, London Free Press, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, and Montreal Gazette newspapers. His magazine writing credits include Toronto Life, Ottawa City, Canadian Business, Canadian Lawyer, Law Times, Canadian Geographic, This Magazine and The Next City. His articles carried by the Inter Press Service (IPS) have been republished by newspapers throughout the world.

He won a National Magazine Award (2000) and honorable mentions in 2001 and 2003 . As well, in 2003 he was nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists award in the magazine writing category. He won a Canadian Archaeological Association public writing award (1989) and several Ontario Newspaper Awards (formerly Western Ontario Newspaper Awards). His 1979 eyewitness account of an F4 tornado in Woodstock, Ontario helped earn his newspaper, the London Free Press, a National Newspaper Award nomination. Most of his NMA-nominated work focused on issues related to people wrongly accused of criminal offences or terrorism. In the CAJ-nominated article, Bourrie found new evidence that a man hanged in Ottawa in 1936 was probably innocent.

Family

Mark Bourrie is married to law student Marion van de Wetering, who is author of two regional history books, An Ottawa Album (Dundurn, 1999) and A Kingston Album (Dundurn, 2000). Bourrie and van de Wetering have three children.

Trivia

Bourrie is a second cousin of Canadian composer John Arpin [[5]]. He worked as a forest fire fighter in 1976 and 1981. His interest in shipwrecks was kindled by family stories of the loss of four of his paternal grandfather's cousins on the Sand Merchant on Lake Erie near Cleveland in 1933.

Works by Bourrie

Books authored:

• Chicago of the North (Annan and Sons 1993)
• Ninety Fathoms Down (Dundurn 1995)
• The Parliament Buildings (Dundurn 1996)
• By Reason of Insanity:The David Michael Krueger Story [6](Dundurn 1997)
• Flim Flam (Dundurn 1998)
• Parliament (text of Malak Karsh's photo essay on Parliament Hill) (Key Porter 1999)
• Hemp (Key Porter 2003)
• True Canadian Stories of the Great Lakes (Key Porter/Prospero 2004)
• Many a Midnight Ship (Key Porter/University of Michigan Press 2005)

Books edited:

• A History of the Canadian Constitution by Jean-Francois Cardin (editor, English version) Montreal: Global Vision, 1996

External links

• Bourrie's paleontology page
• Bourrie's blog