L. Ian MacDonald
L. Ian MacDonald (born 1947) is a Canadian writer, broadcaster, and diplomat.
Biography
MacDonald graduated from Concordia University (Loyola) in 1969 with an honours degree in political science. He has been a columnist for the Montreal Gazette and the defunct Montreal Daily News, and has been a sessional lecturer at Concordia University.
He wrote his first book in 1984, a bestseller that covered Brian Mulroney's rise from boyhood to Prime Minister of Canada. MacDonald served as chief speechwriter for Mulroney from 1985–88. He served as Minister of Public Affairs at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC from 1992–94.
MacDonald has published four more books. most recently "Politics, People & Potpourri", selected by CBC as "one of the best political reads" of 2009. He writes frequently for Canadian newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and Ottawa Citizen, and broadcasts on radio and television. He served for 10 years from 2002-2012 as editor in chief of the magazine Policy Options, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. He is now Editor and Publisher of Policy Magazine.
He has two daughters--Grace, born in 1990, and Zara, born in 2009.
He was enshrined in the Concordia University Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 as part of the Loyola College Warriors 1968 hockey team. Their cinderella story (15 win, 1 loss) season took them to the National Championships, where after beating #1 University of Toronto in double overtime, they lost in the University Cup final 5-4 to the University of Alberta.
Major works
- Mulroney: The Making of the Prime Minister, by L. Ian MacDonald, 1984.
- Free Trade: Risks and Rewards, edited by L. Ian MacDonald, 2000.
- From Bourassa to Bourassa: Wilderness to Restoration, by L. Ian MacDonald, 2002.
- Leo: A Life, by Leo Kolber, with L. Ian MacDonald, 2003.
- "Politics, People & Potpourri", by L. Ian MacDonald, 2009.