Peter C. Newman

Peter C. Newman
Peter Charles Newman (born Peta Karel Neumann; May 10, 1929 – September 7, 2023) was a Canadian journalist, editor and author. He interviewed and wrote about every Canadian prime minister from Louis St. Laurent (1948–1957) to Paul Martin (2003–2006). His three-volume series on The Canadian Establishment helped set new standards for business reporting, while his three-volume history of the Hudson's Bay Company provided a comprehensive account of Canada's early beginnings as an international fur-trading nation.
Newman served as editor-in-chief at both the Toronto Star and Maclean's, the latter of which he transformed from a money-losing monthly magazine into a lively newsweekly that published some of the country's most talented journalists.
His half-dozen literary awards include the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize for his 2004 autobiography Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power.
In 1990, when Newman was promoted to the rank of Companion of the Order of Canada, his citation read: "Chronicler of our past and interpreter of our present, his popular histories and biographies continue to capture the imagination, bringing to life people, places and events that have shaped our great country."
Early life
Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1929, Newman immigrated to Canada from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1940 as a Jewish refugee. His parents were Wanda Maria and Oscar Karel Neumann, a wealthy self-made factory owner. The family escaped German dive bombing at Biarritz in France as they left Europe and U-boat attacks on their convoy before they arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax in September 1940. He was educated at Upper Canada College, where he was a member of Seaton's House, and the University of Toronto. Newman joined the Royal Canadian Navy reserve in 1947 as an ordinary seaman and later reached the rank of captain, having served in the naval reserve for 50 years.
Career
Newman was a reporter for the Financial Post, served as editor of the Toronto Star, and was the long-time editor of Maclean's, stewarding its transformation from a general interest magazine to a weekly news magazine. In 1978 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC), and was promoted to the rank of Companion (CC) in 1990.
Newman was widely respected for his intimate knowledge and understanding of Canadian business leaders. Newman made his name as an author in the 1960s with the publication of two books: Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (1963), a study of the government of John Diefenbaker that some say helped destroy the Tory leader's career, and The Distemper of Our Times (1968), an examination of Canadian politics during the era of Lester Pearson. His 1975 book The Canadian Establishment was widely acclaimed.
On September 12, 2005, Newman announced the publication of The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister, a biography of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, whom he considered a friend. The information released to the press contained several surprising revelations, including an allegation by Mulroney that Pierre Trudeau's contribution "was not to build Canada but to destroy it." Later the same day, Mulroney issued a press release stating he felt "devastated" and "betrayed" by the publication of information he had understood to be confidential. Shortly after the publication of The Secret Mulroney Tapes, both Mulroney and Conrad Black filed suit against Newman. The lawsuit was settled the following year.
In 1973, Newman described his "ideological swing… away from a blind acceptance of the 'small-l' liberalism of the Fifties to a strongly-felt nationalism."
He was appointed visiting professor of distinction at Ryerson University in Toronto in December 2009. In October 2012, he joined the faculty of the Royal Military College of Canada as its first journalist-in-residence. In this role, he was involved with RMC's graduate and undergraduate programs and gave lectures on topics relating to business, politics and history.
Personal life
Newman was married four times, once to writer Christina McCall. He lived with his fourth wife, Alvy (Bjorklund) Newman, in Belleville, Ontario. He died from complications of Parkinson's disease and a stroke at a hospital in Belleville on September 7, 2023, at the age of 94.
Bibliography
1959 Flame of Power: Intimate Profiles of Canada's Greatest Businessmen
1963 Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years
1968 The Distemper of Our Times: Canadian Politics in Transition
1969 A Nation Divided: Canada and the Coming of Pierre Trudeau
1972 Their Turn to Curtsy: Your Turn to Bow
1973 Home Country: People, Places, and Power Politics
1975 The Canadian Establishment: Volume One: The Old Order
1978 Bronfman Dynasty: The Rothschilds of the New World (published in America in 1979 under the different title, King of the Castle: The Making of a Dynasty)
1981 The Canadian Establishment: Volume Two: The Acquisitors
1982 The Establishment Man: Conrad Black, A Portrait of Power
1983 True North, Not Strong and Free: Defending the Peaceable Kingdom in the Nuclear Age
1983 Debrett's Illustrated Guide to the Canadian Establishment (editor)
1984 Drawn and Quartered: The Trudeau Years
1985 A History of the Hudson's Bay Company: Volume One: Company of Adventurers
1987 A History of the Hudson's Bay Company: Volume Two: Caesars of the Wilderness
1989 Empire of the Bay: An Illustrated History of the Hudson Bay Company
1991 A History of the Hudson's Bay Company: Volume Three: Merchant Princes
1989 Canada: The Great Lone Land
1991 Canada 1892: Portrait of a Promised Land
1993 Promise of the Pipeline
1995 Nortel, Northern Telecom: Past, Present, Future
1995 The Canadian Revolution: From Deference to Defiance
1996 Defining Moments: Dispatches from an Unfinished Revolution
1996 Vancouver: The Art of Living Well
1998 The Canadian Establishment: Volume Three: The Titans
1998 Sometimes a Great Nation: Will Canada Belong to the 21st Century?
1998 Canada: The Land that Shapes Us
2002 Continental Reach
2004 Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power (Autobiography)
2005 The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister
2008 Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada's Media Mogul
2010 Heroes: Canadian Champions, Dark Horses, and Icons
2010 Mavericks: Canadian Rebels, Renegades, and Anti-Heroes
2011 When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada (originally titled: Michael Ignatieff: The Man In Full)
2016 "Hostages to Fortune: The United Empire Loyalists and The Making of Canada"
References
External links
Peter C. Newman Archive at McMaster University
Peter C. Newman CBC Life and Times profile.
Peter C. Newman at The Canadian Encyclopedia
Peter C. Newman at Western Libraries
1929 births
2023 deaths
20th-century Canadian biographers
20th-century Canadian historians
20th-century Canadian journalists
21st-century Canadian biographers
21st-century Canadian historians
21st-century Canadian journalists
21st-century Canadian memoirists
Canadian business and financial journalists
Canadian columnists
Canadian magazine editors
Canadian male biographers
Canadian nationalists
Companions of the Order of Canada
Czech Jews
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Jewish Canadian journalists
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Canada
Neurological disease deaths in Ontario
Toronto Star people
University of Toronto alumni
Upper Canada College alumni
Writers from Belleville, Ontario
Canadian people of Austrian-Jewish descent