Neil McKenty

Neil McKenty (born 1924)^[1] is an English-Canadian radio and television broadcaster and author.

Early life

The son of a hardware store owner, McKenty was raised in Hastings, Ontario, near Peterborough. He was schooled at a Jesuit boarding school in Kingston, Ontario.^[2]

He was educated at the University of Toronto, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Canadian history, and the University of Michigan, achieving a master's in communications.^[2][3]

For fifteen years, he was a teacher and ordained priest with the Jesuit order, until 1970, when he left to do public relations with the Special Olympics.^[2]

Broadcasting career

In October 1972, he moved from Toronto to Montreal to work as a talk show host for CJAD AM radio. Initially working as the station's editorialist, he later co-hosted a 60-minute phone-in show with Helen Gougeon.^[2] In 1977 he began working solo, and his two-hour morning show Exchange almost immediately became the city's top-rated phone-in program.^[1] He described Exchange as a radio "town meeting" and "people talking over their clotheslines in the backyard."^[2] His signature line was "the lines are blazing." The show achieved its peak ratings—about 75,000 regular listeners—in 1985 when he decided to leave and write books instead.^[2] He returned to broadcasting when his television phone-in talk show, McKenty Live, on CFCF-TV, debuted in September 1987;^[4] it ran for three seasons until 1990, when he decided to focus on writing once again.^[5]

He interviewed many Canadian political leaders.^[3][6]

At the time of the passage of Bill 101 making French the only official language of Quebec, McKenty declined to denounce the law entirely. He claimed that the purported aim of the bill, more respect for French-speaking Quebecers, was just.^[6]

In 2008, he started a blog on current affairs at www.neilmckenty.com.

Bibliography

He left radio broadcasting in 1985 to write In the Stillness Dancing: The Journey of John Main, a biography of Benedictine monk John Main, published in 1986. It received mostly a positive response from critics.^[7] He went on to write a biography of Toronto mayor R. J. Fleming. Together with his wife Catharine, McKenty wrote Skiing Legends and the Laurentian Lodge Club (2001), an historical account of a social and skiing club in the Laurentian Mountains.^[8] In all, McKenty wrote five titles, both non-fiction (the two biographies, a memoir, the skiing club history) and fiction (a murder mystery, The Other Key: An Inspector Julian Main Mystery).

Quebec Canada Committee

In 1992, he toured Canada as co-founder (with businessman John Hallward) of the Quebec Canada Committee to promote the idea of a unified Canada, building bridges between French and English Canada during the lead-up to the Charlottetown Accord constitution amendment proposals.^[9][10][11]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "McKenty sidelined". The Gazette. 2004-10-28. p. A6. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Boone, Mike (1985-07-10). "CJAD's Neil McKenty calls it quits: Exchange host trades in top-rated show for writing career". The Gazette. p. D5. 
3. ^ ^{a b} About Neil « Neil McKenty Weblog
4. ^ Boone, Mike (1987-09-30). "McKenty's talent wasted on television". The Gazette. p. H2. 
5. ^ "McKenty decided not to return". The Gazette. 1990-06-23. p. D2. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Honour those who stayed
7. ^ Boone, Mike (1987-05-29). "Neil McKenty's back - and this time he's live on TV". The Gazette. p. D6. 
8. ^ Hustak, Alan (2001-02-03). "Early days of skiing fondly recalled: Laurentian Lodge members going downhill since 1924". The Gazette. p. J5. 
9. ^ Cunningham, Jim (1992-05-07). "Messengers will spread word". Calgary Herald. p. B1. 
10. ^ Barrett, Tom (1992-05-21). "Anglophone sings praises of Quebec". The Vancouver Sun. p. B6. 
11. ^ Laghi, Brian (1992-05-22). "Unity crusader detects new acceptance of Que.". Edmonton Journal. p. E14. 

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Name	Mackenty, Neil
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Date of birth	1924
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