EVENT DATE: March 14, 2019
TOPIC: Stories from the Last Foreign Correspondent

Matthew Fisher is Resident Visiting Scholar in defence and security at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at Massey College, a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and Canada’s most experienced and well-traveled foreign correspondent.

He grew up in a remote town in northwestern Ontario and in Ottawa. He studied Fine Arts (film major) at York University, and then was a full time journalist for 45 years, working overseas for 34 years. He was the international affairs columnist for the National Post and Postmedia for 17 years, after working for Sun Media and the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Fisher has been to 172 countries, living in Belgium, Germany, Russia, Hong Kong, Britain, Iraq, Jerusalem and Afghanistan. He observed 19 wars and conflicts from Central America and Rwanda to Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Balkans, the Middle East, Timor, Afghanistan and Abu Sayyaf’s Islamic war in Mindanao. Last fall he met with Canadian NATO pilots flying Air Policing missions out of Romania.

Fisher received the Ross Munro Award in 2007 for an extraordinary contribution to increasing the understanding of Canadians of defence and security issues. He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 for making a significant contribution to Canadian public life. He is writing a book about his life abroad and Canada’s place in the world, with an emphasis on the High Arctic and on Russia and China.