Josh
O’Kane
Josh O’Kane has been a reporter with the Globe and Mail since 2011 where he has written on the institutions, economics, and policies that shape arts and culture in Canada. His focus for the last five years has been on the technology sector, specifically the interactions between tech companies, governments, economies, and people. O’Kane has won several Best in Business Canada Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and the 2019 Arthur F. Burns Award. His first book, Nowhere with You: The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit, was a national bestseller. O’Kane lives in Toronto.
Award History
2023 Finalist
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writingfor Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy
Jury Citation
“In Sideways, Josh O’Kane presents the engaging, comprehensive tale of Google’s collision with Waterfront Toronto, a federal-provincial-municipal government development agency, as it seeks to cash in on the love affair with Big Tech. Packed with insightful interviews and tart observations of the zeitgeist, O’Kane deftly combines analysis, telling anecdotes, and a helping of wit to recount how the romance went sour. The result is a definitive chronicle, leaving behind valuable lessons for Canadian policymakers.”
— 2023 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Jury (Terri E. Givens, Nik Nanos, and Jacques Poitras)
