Anne Lagacé Dowson

Anne Lagacé Dowson (born Toronto, Ontario) is an award-winning radio journalist.

Radio career

A longtime host of CBC Radio's Radio Noon, a daily current affairs and phone-in program in Quebec, she left to run in 2008.^[1] She also hosted Home Run in Montreal, and was producer of C'est la Vie. She was a news reporter, arts reporter, press reviewer, and has guest hosted Cross Country Checkup and As It Happens, where she was also a producer. She has been a frequent guest in the francophone media, where she was a juror on the Radio Canada version of Canada Reads, entitled Le Combat des livres, where she championed Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version. She was a daily presence on the Radio-Canada radio programme "Sans Preliminaires" with Franco Nuovo. She is a member of a weekly politics panel on Radio-Canada's flag ship television newscast "Le Téléjournal" with Jean-Francois Lisée, Liza Frulla and Tasha Kheiriddin, hosted by Céline Galipeau.

She was the first ever anglo spokesperson for the Festival International du Film sur l'Art in Montreal-the biggest festival of films on art in the world.

From September 2009 to August 2011, she hosted a Saturday afternoon show on CJAD-AM in Montreal. She now participates in the Tommy Schnurmacher Show as a member of the Gang of Four, and does a weekly column on politics on the drive show with Aaron Rand.

Her column about anglo Quebec is entitled "Bloke Nation" and appears in the entertainment weekly Hour Community. http://hour.ca/section/columns/bloke-nation/

Political career

She was the New Democratic Party candidate in the 2008 Canadian federal election in Westmount—Ville-Marie, coming second to Liberal Marc Garneau. She had originally been the party's candidate in a by-election in Westmount—Ville Marie, which was superseded by the general election call.

She was endorsed by Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing,^[2] McGill University academics Charles Taylor and Desmond Morton, human rights lawyer Julius Grey and the former mayor of Westmount, May Cutler.

Education

She holds a Masters degree in Canadian studies, and champions culture, especially literacy and books. She has played moderator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to writers ranging from Salman Rushdie to John Ralston Saul. Invited by the Governor General, she hosted events at Rideau Hall, most recently three national panel debates on the arts.

Personal life

Lagacé Dowson is married to Brian McKenna, an independent documentary filmmaker.^[1]

Fluently bilingual, she is the daughter of trade unionist Hugh Dowson of Toronto and Québec City's Claire Lagacé. Claire Lagacé studied with the Ursulines alongside leading Québec author Anne Hébert, from whom she derives her name.

Her great uncle Pierre Édouard Blondin was a Conservative Minister in Prime Minister Robert Borden's government, and went on to become Speaker of the Senate. Her uncle Ross Dowson ran for Mayor of Toronto after the war on a Trotskyist platform.

Her aunts Lois and Joyce Dowson co-founded the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Hemophilia Society in the 1950s after Joyce, married to sculptor Joe Rosenthal, discovered that their son, Ronald Rosenthal, had hemophilia. Lois and Joyce were also leading pro choice activists, and supporters of Dr Henry Morgentaler.

References

http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/sans_preliminaires/2011/chroniqueur.asp?chroniqueur=anne_lagac%E9%20dowson

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/medias/201101/27/01-4364124-anne-lagace-dowson-un-trait-dunion-entre-deux-cultures.php

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Anne+Lagac%C3%A9+Dowson+lost+show+link+CJAD/5335848/story.html

http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/September2011/12/c2408.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_%C3%89douard_Blondin

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