Canadian Who's Who

Canadian Who's Who is a publication containing biographical information about 13,000 notable Canadians. Because of the absence of biographical fact-checking by the publishers (e.g. candidates send in their own biographical details without any checking), Canadian Who's Who is not used as a reference by mainstream Canadian media, and is rarely, if ever, quoted as a source.[1]

Background

Canadian Who's Who is published and distributed annually by Grey House Publishing Canada with a bright-red binding and an online searchable version is also available through a subscription.[2] The online, searchable, electronic version of Canadian Who's Who includes more than 11,000 archived biographies, in addition to the 13,000 biographies found in the 2014/2015 print edition. Every year the publisher invites new individuals to complete questionnaires from which new biographies are compiled. The publisher also gives those already listed in earlier editions an opportunity to update their biographies.

Canadian Who's Who was first published in 1910 by the Ottawa branch of The Times.[3] In a rare reference to Canadian Who's Who in Canadian media, the Peterborough Examiner in 2009 found reading the 1910 edition to be "as rewarding as similar time spent surfing the web".[4] In 1932, A.L. Tunnell acquired copyright from The Times and published a second edition in 1936. Tunnell usually published new editions every three years. University of Toronto Press became the new publisher in 1978 and began an annual schedule of publication.[3] In 1997 it began publishing on CD-ROM.[5] Third Sector Publishing took over from University of Toronto Press in March 2011, publishing editions up to 2015, before Grey House Publishing purchased the publication in March 2016.[3]

There is no charge, nor is there any obligation, for the inclusion of a biography in the Canadian Who's Who but according to Elizabeth Lumley, an editor of the publication, entrants must be outstanding in their field. Included are Canadians from business, academia, politics, sports, the arts and sciences.[5]

One of the few known articles written about Canadian Who's Who was by Canadian journalist Robert Fulford in 1997, who noted that "Canadians chosen for inclusion submit their own entries, at whatever length they choose, and no one edits their egotism or whimsy".[1] Fulford described the publication as "a book of 15,000 authors".[1] In April 2018, Canadian Who's Who made a rare appearance in mainstream Canadian media in Maclean's, regarding the falsification of Canadian author Bill Gaston's biographical details.[6]

References
  1. Robert Fulford (26 September 1998). "Who's Who is a book of 15,000 authors". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
  2. "Welcome to Canadian Who's Who".
  3. "Publication History of Canadian Who's Who". Canadian Who's Who. Grey House Publishing. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  4. "Who's Who...and who's not". Peterborough Examiner. 8 August 2009. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  5. Ray, Randy; Kearney, Mark (1 May 1998). The Great Canadian Trivia, Book 2. Dundurn Press. p. 230. ISBN 1770700153.
  6. Aaron Hutchins (2 April 2018). "Meet the acclaimed Canadian author who couldn't stop lying about his birthplace". Maclean's. Retrieved 28 February 2019. He told the reporter the lie probably originated in a 1990s copy of Canadian Who’s Who, a publication that tracks biographical information of notable Canadians. But when Maclean’s dug up a 1996 copy of Canadian Who’s Who, it stated that Gaston was born not in Flin Flon, or Tacoma even, but in Oslo, Norway.
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