‘Incredibly proud’ to be Canadian: Former CBC foreign correspondent Brian Stewart looks back in new memoir

CTV Calgary's Ian White interviews Brian Stewart about his new memoir detailing his career as a foreign correspondent.

Former CBC foreign correspondent Brian Stewart spent decades covering the world for Canada and admits he’s “enormously proud” to be Canadian.

“I’m incredibly proud to have lived through that period in the 1980s, by the way, when Canada really was known as a “Samaritan state”. It was helping out so much around the world it had a great international posture,” Stewart told CTV News.

Stewart’ s memoir is On the Ground: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent.

The book begins with a chapter on Stewart’s coverage of the famine in Ethiopia in 1984-85, likely the defining moment of his career.

The CBC and BBC were the first to bring the enormity of the famine to the rest of the world, inspiring Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid and, the next summer, Live Aid.

After Stewart’s first story from Ethiopia aired on November 1, 1984, he credits the federal government for spearheading the international relief effort.

“Canada had taken on a kind of leadership role to get the whole world behind saving Northern Ethiopia, the epicentre of the famine. Canada took a lead at the United Nations. Canada lobbied other governments to get involved.”