Dennis Trudeau

Dennis Trudeau is one of Canada’s foremost broadcast journalists and interviewers. His wide experience in the media and his broad coverage of current events give him a unique perspective on public affairs and the changing media universe. As a fluently bilingual Montrealer, Trudeau has a unique understanding of the linguistic and cultural duality of the country and a knack for describing each side of the duality to the other. Over the course of 35 years covering the world, Canada, Quebec and Montreal, Trudeau has worked in newspapers, radio and television, garnering a deep knowledge of the country and an inside view of the Canadian media. As an interviewer, throughout his career and on his own CBC Television program—Sunday Night with Dennis Trudeau--Trudeau has interviewed statesmen and philosophers, famous writers and filmmakers, heroes and scoundrels, adventurers and athletes. His contacts with them give him a unique perspective on the shape of the world and the shaping of that world by the individuals who fascinate us. Trudeau’s wide experience in the media has also given him a special understanding of the media universe where so many outlets compete for attention in the wired world. In his speeches and appearances, Trudeau treats his subject with wit and intelligence. He is always ready to leave time for questions and answers with the audience to enhance the experience and make the audience part of a stimulating exchange. Trudeau has also wide experience as a master of ceremonies and discussion moderator for private firms and public bodies whether it be in private or open to the public. As a broadcaster, Trudeau worked on national CBC programs such as As it Happens and Cross-Country Check-up on radio and on The National and Midday on CBC Television as well as the CBC all news channel Newsworld. For almost 20 years, he hosted CBC’s supper hour television broadcast, a prime seat for observing the issues that shaped Canada over those years: free trade and Meech Lake, the Oka crisis, the 1995 Quebec referendum on independence, or the 1989 massacre of women at the Ecole Polytechnique in of Montreal. Trudeau started out in newspapers in Quebec City and Montreal, during the explosive decade of the 1970’s, covering the FLQ terrorist trials, the labour upheaval, the rise to power of the Parti Quebecois and the first referendum on independence in 1980. As a broadcaster, Trudeau was host interviewer on the acclaimed radio program, As It Happens, covering the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the invasion of Lebanon and the Lebanese civil war, the rise of Glasnost and Perestroika in the Eastern Bloc. He earned a Gemini nomination for his work on CBC Television during the Oka Crisis. He also received a Duke University Fellowship in foreign affairs studies and a Louis Saint-Laurent Fellowship in legal studies at Laval University in Quebec City. Trudeau studied political science and philosophy at the University of Ottawa. He obtained his post-graduate degree in journalism at the University of Western Ontario, where he won the J.B.McGeachy Memorial Award and the Inco Journalism Award.