Senator Joan Fraser

Appointed to the Senate by the Rt. Honourable Jean Chrétien, Senator Joan Fraser represents the province of Quebec and the Senatorial Division of De Lorimier. She has served in the Senate of Canada since September 17, 1998.

She is currently Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and a Member of the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. Areas of specialty and interest include journalism, communications, the Constitution, and Official Languages.

Senator Fraser is well-known to Canadians as a journalist and commentator. She began her career in print journalism, joining the Montreal newspaper The Gazette as a cub reporter in 1965. In 1967, she joined the Financial Times of Canada, where over the following eleven years she served as news editor, editorial page editor and Montreal bureau chief. In 1978, she returned to The Gazette as editorial page editor. In 1993, she was appointed Editor-in-Chief, a post she held until 1996. From 1997 to 1998, she was Director-General of the Centre for Research and Information on Canada, a division of the Council for Canadian Unity. In addition to her vast awareness of print journalism, Senator Fraser has extensive broadcast experience on radio and television, in both English and French.

She has won two National Newspaper Awards for editorial writing (1982 and 1991), and four National Newspaper Award Citations of Merit for editorial writing (1986, 1987, 1990, 1994). She has also won other awards for journalism, communications, and her work on women’s issues.

Senator Fraser holds a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages from McGill University (1965).

Born on October 12, 1944 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is married to Michel Faure. They have two children.