An award-winning journalist, Victor Malarek has more than thirty years of experience in Canadian news. At present, he brings his hard-hitting investigative skills to CTV's current affairs show W5 as its senior reporter.
Prior to joining W5, Malarek was the investigations editor for The Globe and Mail from 2000 to June 2003 and from 1990 to 2000 he was a host of CBC's investigative documentary show The Fifth Estate. Malarek has won many awards for his work over the years. In 2001, his hard-hitting investigation into the Toronto Police Union led to a fourth Michener Award and in 1997, he won a Gemini Award as Canada's Top Broadcast Journalist.
Born in Lachine, Quebec in 1948, Malarek began his career in journalism as a copy boy at Weekend Magazine in Montreal in 1968. Two years later, he joined The Montreal Star as a police reporter and was one of the first journalists to report on the 1970 FLQ-October Crisis. A year later, he broke a front-page story that would set the stage for his move into the world of investigative journalism. The story involved three teenage boys who hanged themselves with skate laces in a sorely mismanaged Montreal juvenile detention centre over the Christmas holidays.
Malarek has reported from across Canada and the United States, and from countries around the world such as Afghanistan, Iran, Kurdistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Ukraine, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Columbia.
In addition to his news reporting, Malarek has written five non-fiction books. His most recent work, The Natashas - The New Global Sex Trade (2003), is about the worldwide sex industry. Gut Instinct - The Making of an Investigative Reporter was published in 1996. It takes readers on a riveting ride behind the scenes of many of his investigations during his twenty-year career in newspapers. His third book, Merchants of Misery (1989), took sharp aim at Canada's illegal drug scene.
Malarek's probe of Canada's immigration and refugee system for The Globe and Mail led to the publication of his second book, Haven's Gate: Canada's Immigration Fiasco, in 1986. His first book Hey ... Malarek! hit bookstores in 1984. It documents his troubled and tumultuous childhood and teenage years while in the so-called care of the Quebec child welfare system. In 1989, it was made into a feature movie.
