Ted Barris is an award-winning journalist, author, and broadcaster. His writing has regularly appeared in the national press, as well as magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for most CBC Radio network programs, PBS in the U.S. and on TV Ontario. And after 18 years teaching, he recently retired as a full-time professor of journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College.

Barris is the author of 20 bestselling, non-fiction books, including a series on wartime Canada: Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944 … Days of Victory: Canadians Remember 1939-1945 … Behind the Glory: Canada’s Role in the Allied Air War … Deadlock in Korea: Canadians at War, 1950-1953 … Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9-12, 1917 … Breaking the Silence: Veterans’ Untold Stories from the Great War to Afghanistan.

His writing has also been published in such anthologies as The Canadian Encyclopedia … Total Hockey: The Official NHL Encyclopedia … A History of Maple Leaf Gardens … and a volume of learned papers presented to the Canada-Korea Conference at the U of T.

Barris’s remaining books are: Rodeo Cowboys … Spirit of the West … Positive Power (Story of the Edmonton Oilers) … Playing Overtime (A Celebration of Oldtimers’ Hockey) … Carved in Granite (125 Years of Granite Club History) … Making Music (Profiles from a Century of Canadian Music) co-authored with his father Alex Barris … and Fire Canoe, a Mark Twain-like retelling of Canada’s 19th century steamboat history.

In 2011, he was one of 19 civilians presented with the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation. The citation reads: “Ted Barris has made such exemplary contributions … benefiting veterans and making manifest the principle that Canada’s obligation to all who have served in the cause of Peace and Freedom, must not be forgotten.”

In 2012, the Air Force Association of Canada selected Ted Barris to receive Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, recognizing “outstanding Canadians … who continue to build this caring society and country through their service and achievements.”

His 17th book, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, won the 2014 Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award (shared with astronaut Chris Hadfield).

In 2018, HarperCollins has published Barris’s 18th book – Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid against Nazi Germany – about the famous 1943 attack on the Ruhr River dams that powered Nazi Germany’s industrial war production. The RCAF Association awarded Ted Barris and Dam Busters its 2018 NORAD Trophy for “unequalled contribution to the preservation of Air Force values, traditions, history and heritage.”

Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire, also published by HarperCollins, is Ted’s 19th non-fiction book. It was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada.

Ted’s 20th book, Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory was published in the fall of 2022 and immediately landed on the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestsellers lists. Following the book’s publication, Ted received word that he’d received Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Award, recognizing “extraordinary contributions to our community and Canada.”

On Dec. 29, 2022, the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced 99 new appointments to the Order of Canada, including Ted Barris, C.M., “For advancing our understanding of Canadian military history as an acclaimed historical author, journalist and broadcaster.” Ted’s father, Alex Barris, was also appointed Member of the Order in 1998.

The first Flower Class Corvette commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy, 9 November 1940, and built in the Collingwood Shipyards

Speakers 2021

January: Terry Fallis, Author and Humourist

February: Terry Fitzgerald, All your Questions About Electric Cars Answered

March: John Boyko, Author, ‘Canada’s Shadow War in Vietnam’

April: Jim Henderson, Adventures of a Geophysicist

May: David T Chapman, Photographer and weather authority

June: Bob MacNair, President Probus, Canada

July 8: Chris Pilsworth, Illusionist

August 5: Shelby Worts, Covid Stranded in the ‘Eternal City”, Rome

September 2: Jennifer Megarry, Office of the Future

October 4: Dr. Bob Galway, Covid; Separating Myth from Fact

November 4: Alex Fitzgerald-Black; Canadian Soldiers Morale, D Day, Normandy

December 2: Andrew Promaine; Georgian Bay Islands National Park

January: WO Nicole Laidlaw, Military Service in Afghanistan

February: Dr. David Chandross, Future of Artificial Intelligence

March : Professor Leonard Friesen, Russia and Ukraine

April 7: Annette Sandberg, Niagara Escarpment

May 5: Don MacKay, Dog Guides

June 2: Terry Gregson, NHL Referee, Retired

July 7: Jory Pritchard-Kerr, President CGM Hospital Foundation

August 4: Tony Dittenhoffer, Volunteer to Ukraine

September 1: Dr Bob Galway,Arctic Aviation and Exploration

October: Malcolm Kelly, Sprog, A Novel of Bomber Commaand

November: M/CPL Jean- Francois Hinse, JDFD, Canadian Forces Base, Borden

December: Neil Crone, Actor. comedian, writer.

January: Bonnie Campbell, Seniors Fitness

February: John Millar, Clean Water for Indigenous Communities

March: Ted Barris, Author, Historian. Battle of the Atlantic