George Radwanski facts for kids

George Radwanski (February 28, 1947 – September 18, 2014) was an important Canadian public servant, a journalist, and an author. He was known for his work in media, his ideas on education, and especially for protecting people's privacy as Canada's Privacy Commissioner.

George Radwanski's Journalism Career

George Radwanski started his career as a reporter in 1965 at the Montreal Gazette. He later became a columnist and an editor there. He then worked for the Financial Times of Canada as a national affairs columnist. In the late 1970s, he joined the Toronto Star newspaper, where he became the editor-in-chief. This meant he was in charge of all the news and stories published in the paper.

During his time as a journalist, Radwanski won two National Newspaper Awards for his writing. He also wrote two books. In 1971, he published No Mandate But Terror, which was about the October Crisis in Canada. In 1978, he wrote Trudeau, a very popular book about the then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

The Radwanski Report on Education

In 1985, George Radwanski left the Toronto Star. He was asked by the Premier of Ontario, David Peterson, to lead a study for the Ministry of Education. This study looked into why students were dropping out of school in Ontario.

His findings were published in 1987 in a report often called the Radwanski Report. He found that the education system needed to change because the economy was shifting. Instead of focusing on factories, the economy was now more about services and technology. Radwanski believed that students were not interested in what they were learning. He also felt they were not getting the skills needed for modern jobs.

He suggested several changes for schools:

• Starting early childhood education (learning for very young children).
• Using standardized tests to check how much students were learning.
• "Destreaming" high schools, which means putting students of different skill levels together in the same classes.
• Focusing on "outcome-based" education, where the goal is what students can do after learning.
• Replacing the credit system with a common core curriculum, meaning all students would learn a similar set of main subjects.

Some of his ideas were later put into action by the government. For example, destreaming was introduced in grade nine, and standardized testing became more common.

After this study, Radwanski worked as a consultant, helping governments and businesses with public policy and communication. In 1996, he helped review the rules for Canada Post Corporation. He also worked as a speechwriter for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who later appointed him as Privacy Commissioner.

George Radwanski as Privacy Commissioner

In 2000, George Radwanski became the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. This job involves protecting the privacy rights of Canadians. He was very vocal about his concerns regarding privacy, especially after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the start of the "War on Terror". He worried that governments were collecting too much information about people.

In his report after 9/11, he said that privacy in Canada was "under assault as never before." He believed that the government was using the events of 9/11 as an excuse to create new databases that could harm people's freedom.

Radwanski worked hard to stop government actions that he felt invaded privacy. He successfully campaigned against:

• Parts of a law (Bill C-36) that would have weakened privacy rules.
• Customs agents opening people's mail.
• A plan to create a huge database of all Canadians' foreign travel activities.

He also started a legal challenge against police video surveillance in public places, though this was later stopped by his successor. He gave many speeches and interviews to make people aware of privacy issues. He also helped put a new law into place, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which protects personal information in the private sector.

George Radwanski resigned from his role in June 2003. He faced criticism from a parliamentary committee about how his office managed its spending. He apologized to Parliament for "errors in judgment" regarding financial matters. He was later cleared of more serious accusations related to his expense claims in 2009.

Personal Life

George Radwanski was born in 1947 in Baden-Baden, West Germany. He went to Loyola High School and then studied political science and law at McGill University. His son, Adam Radwanski, is also a journalist who writes about politics for The Globe and Mail. George Radwanski passed away from a heart attack on September 18, 2014.