John Ivison on his biography of Justin Trudeau

John Ivison is a Scottish Canadian journalist who is Ottawa Bureau Chief for the National Post.

Raised in Dumfries, Scotland, he worked as a reporter for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh and as deputy business editor of Scotland on Sunday. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario, where he earned a masters degree in Journalism.

He moved to Canada in 1998 as part of the team that launched the National Post, and has covered provincial politics in Ontario and federal politics in Ottawa since 2003.

He appears as a panelist on various Canadian TV public affairs programs and is the author of Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister (2019), a biography of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that focuses on his government's promise-filled first mandate. Ivison is married to Canadian diplomat Dana Cryderman, and has three children. Together they have taught him 'how to be content.'

I want to be content, so my initial questions deal with this topic. We then discuss John's moves back and forth between Scotland and Canada, shuffle on to the story of the book itself, and then on to Trudeau and the lessons he may or may not have learned during his tenure in office. I raise the topic of the Post's right wing board of directors, and throw in some of John's humour and political wisdom, and we close with an examination of truth, and whether or not Canadians can trust Justin Trudeau.