Calgary author wins $30K award for book on pipeline debate

TORONTO A comprehensive look at Canada’s pipeline debate by Calgary-based author Chris Turner has won the $30,000 National Business Book Award.

The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands (Simon & Schuster) was awarded the top prize at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Tuesday.

The award for the most outstanding Canadian business-related book in 2018 is co-sponsored by the BMO Financial Group and law firm Bennett Jones.

Former CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge chaired this year’s jury, which also included Deirdre McMurdy, David Denison, Anna Porter, Pamela Wallin and Leonard Waverman.

The other finalists were: Looking for Bootstraps: Economic Development in the Maritimes by Donald Savoie (Nimbus Publishing); Stumbling Giants: Transforming Canada’s Banks for the Information Age by Patricia Meredith and James Darroch (Rotman — UTP Publishing); and Creating Great Choices: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking by Jennifer Riel and Roger Martin (Harvard Business Review Press).

Last year’s winner was Daniel J. Levitin for A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age, a guide for spotting fake news.