His third book, A Time Such as There Never Was Before: Canada After the Great War was published by Dundurn Press in September 2014.
He received his primary and secondary education in Winnipeg, Toronto, Chatham (New Jersey), and Oakville (Ontario).
He was posted to Tanzania during the presidency of Julius Nyerere (1975-7), and Zimbabwe during the early years of independence under Robert Mugabe (1982-5), and represented Canada in Mozambique, Seychelles, and Mauritius.
[3] At headquarters he managed Canada-US economic, environmental, transport, and boundary issues (1978–82), and co-ordinated Canadian participation in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (today the OSCE) during the last years of the Cold War (1985–90).
He managed the sensitive functions of Cabinet and Parliamentary Liaison (1990–93), and Access to Information and Privacy Protection (1993-1996).