Barbara Yaffe is a 54-year-old Montreal-born journalist who has spent more than 30 years living and working from one end of Canada to the other.

She attended McGill University and the University of Toronto, reciving her B.A. degree in 1974. She then took the journalism program at Carleton University, receiving her B.J. in 1975.

Her first job was at The Montreal Gazette. Within a year she made the switch to The Globe and Mail where she worked in the Toronto newsroom, the Queens Park Bureau and then, the Altantic Bureau. While at the Globe, Yaffe was co-recipient, in 1977, of the Roland Michener Award for a series of articles on children's services in Ontario.

In 1981, she accepted a job as CBC TV National news reporter for Newfoundland and Labrador, and later covered the province of Alberta for CBC.

She returned to The Globe in 1984 becoming parliamentary reporter in Ottawa. From 1985 to 88 she worked again in Newfoundland, as a freelance magazine and newspaper reporter and later for the weekly Sunday Express.

She joined The Vancouver Sun in 1988, becoming Lifestyles Editor. In 1991, she accepted the position of B.C. editor, in charge of provincial news. In 1993, she took on her current role as national political columnist.

In 2004, she won Columnist of the Year award given by the Jack Webster Foundation. The same year she won an award of distinction from the International Fund for Animal Welfare for her writing on animal welfare.

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