Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Radio
Sundays 8pm to 11pm on Radio 2
New Episodes at CBC Music
Need more Strombo Show? Head over to our page on CBC Music for new episodes, playlists and video extras.
Craig Oliver, veteran broadcaster, has been the face of Canadian political journalism for decades. He's covered every election since 1957 -- from Dief all the way to Stephen Harper's majority. Along the way he was criticized for making some famous and powerful friends, most notably Pierre Trudeau. There's an unwritten rule that journalists shouldn't be friends with power but it's an idea Craig disagrees with. We'll ask him about that.
Those are the well-known facts of Craig's life. What isn't so well known is the backstory. Craig sums it up in the first sentence of his memoir, Oliver's Twist. He writes: "My father was a bootlegger and, for a short time, a jailbird. My mother ran a successful taxi business, also for a short time. Both were alcoholics."
His memoir sketches out a life of poverty and uncertainty. One that taught him a fierce independence and the tenacity that's kept him going in the business for fifty years. He's in his 70s now, legally blind, but he has no plans to stop working as hard as he did that very first day at a tiny CBC outpost in Prince Rupert, British Columbia more than 50 years ago.
@TheStromboShow