Jonathan Manthorpe is a founding columnist with Facts and Opinions and is the author of the journal’s International Affairs column. Manthorpe is currently on leave from F&O while working on a new book, while continuing to write a column on international affairs for the Ottawa-based iPolitics.
Manthorpe has been a foreign correspondent and international affairs columnist for nearly 40 years. Manthorpe’s nomadic career began in the late 1970s as European Bureau Chief for The Toronto Star, the job that took Ernest Hemingway to Europe in the 1920s. In the mid-1980s Manthorpe became European Correspondent for Southam News. In the following years Manthorpe was sent by Southam News, the internal news agency for Canada’s largest group of metropolitan daily newspapers, to be the correspondent in Africa and then Asia. Between postings Manthorpe spent a few years based in Ottawa focusing on intelligence and military affairs, and the United Nations. From 1998 until mid 2013 Manthorpe was been based in Vancouver and traveled frequently on assignment to Asia, Europe and Latin America. He is now based in Victoria, British Columbia, and continues to travel as events and opportunities demand.
While print journalism has been the binding thread of Manthorpe’s career, he has been involved in many associated international endeavours. In the early 1980s Manthorpe was a special adviser in London to the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on “patriation” of Canada’s constitution. Most recently he spent three years as a member of the Canada-Japan Forum, a small committee advising the prime ministers of the two countries on how to enhance bilateral relations. Manthorpe has also undertaken special projects for the United Nations, the World Bank, the Asia Development Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency, and several non-government organizations.
Contact him at jonathan.manthorpe AT gmail.com