12 Facts About Linda McQuaig

Linda Joy McQuaig was born on September 1951 and is a Canadian journalist, columnist, author and social critic.

Linda McQuaig worked as a reporter investigating the Patti Starr affair.

Linda McQuaig wrote books and newspaper columns focusing on corporate influence in economic and social policy.

From 1963 to 1970 McQuaig attended Branksome Hall, a Toronto private girls school where she became president of the debating society, and from which she graduated with the Governor General's Academic Medal.

Linda McQuaig first worked as a journalist while a student at University of Toronto, initially writing and then co-editing with Thomas Walkom the student newspaper The Varsity.

In 1983 Linda McQuaig wrote a two-part piece for Maclean's with its then-assistant business editor Ian Austen investigating whether Canadian financier Conrad Black had tried to influence the Attorney General of Ontario inappropriately to stop an investigation into his attempted takeover of Ohio-based Hanna Mining Company.

In 1984, Linda McQuaig returned to the Globe as a political reporter, and in 1989 received the tips that uncovered the Patti Starr affair, in which former Ontario Place CEO Patti Starr was found to have illegally used charitable funds to make political donations, and for which Linda McQuaig was awarded a Centre for Investigative Journalism Award and a National Newspaper Award.

Since 1992 Linda McQuaig has written an op-ed column in the Toronto Star and has supported herself through a combination of freelance writing, speaking engagements and royalties from her books.

In 2013 Linda McQuaig ran for the New Democratic Party in the Toronto Centre by-election.

Linda McQuaig was defeated by Chrystia Freeland of the Liberal Party.

Linda McQuaig ran again in the 2015 federal election, this time losing to Liberal Bill Morneau.

In Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the US Empire, Linda McQuaig argued that Canada should stop supporting the US in its role of what she calls an imperial power.