Ibbitson wins prize for book on Harper

Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson is the winner of the 2016 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for his book Stephen Harper (Signal/McClelland & Stewart).

The announcement was made Wednesday night at the Politics and the Pen Gala at the Fairmont Château Laurier. The prize is worth $25,000.

The jury, of Canadian military historian Tim Cook, journalist Robyn Doolittle and McGill professor and political commentator Antonia Maioni, picked the winner. The book was chosen because of what it revealed about the very private former prime minister, who has virtually disappeared from the public eye since his defeat last October.

John Ibbitson is based in Ottawa, where he lives, and has worked for the Globe and Mail, the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen in his career. He is the author of three earlier works of political analysis, including The Polite Revolution: Perfecting the Canadian Dream. He is a past finalist for the Donner Prize, a Governor General’s Literary Award, a National Newspaper Award, a Trillium Book Award, the City of Toronto Book Award, and the B.C. National Award for Canadian Nonfiction..

The other four finalists received $2,500 each. They are:

Greg Donaghy for Grit: The Life and Politics of Paul Martin Sr. (UBC Press)

Carleton University professor Norman Hillmer for O.D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition (University of Toronto Press)

Andrew Nikiforuk for Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry (Greystone Books/David Suzuki Institute)

Sheila Watt-Cloutier for The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic, and the Whole Planet (Allen Lane)

The prize was established in honour of the late Shaughnessy Cohen, the former MP from Windsor, ON.