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Robert Fife

Canadian journalist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ7344328
Source-derived summary

Robert Fife (born 1954) is a Canadian political journalist and author who served as Ottawa bureau chief for The Globe and Mail.

Fife was also Ottawa bureau chief for CanWest News Service, the National Post, and the Sun Media chain. He was the Ottawa bureau chief for CTV News from February 2005. At CTV, he was the host of its Question Period show, a political panel discussion; after Fife's move to The Globe and Mail was announced, it was also stated that the show would be rebranded CTV’s Question Period with The Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife.

Fife published multiple stories incorrectly portraying Maher Arar as definitively associated with Al-Qaeda. He broke the news of the Canadian Senate expenses scandal with his reporting on Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright. Fife disclosed the Canadian government's C$10.5 million settlement with Omar Khadr. He also was part of a team of three (together with Steven Chase and Sean Fine), who first broke the story of the SNC-Lavalin Affair and (with Chase) on the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Biography

Fife is a native of Chapleau, Ontario. He has been covering national politics since 1978, when he began his career in the parliamentary bureau of News Radio.

Editorial summary

“Robert Fife” enters the record as canadian journalist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Fife and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1954, 2005, 1978—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1954-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Robert, Fife and Canadian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Robert Fife” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Robert, Fife and Canadian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7344328. VIAF identifies the subject as 105338052. The Library of Congress control number is n94006618. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 2005 and 1978.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Robert Fife”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Fife primary sources, Robert Fife archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Fife”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert Fife” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.