Canada biz reporter Little dies at 74

Bruce Little

Bruce Little, a reporter whose “Amazing Facts” column in The Globe and Mail tracked Canada’s political leaders, central bankers and their economic policies, died earlier this month at the age of 74 after a brief illness.

Peter Tym of the Globe and Mail writes, “In 1976, Mr. Little joined the CBC in Halifax as producer of the morning radio show. He only stayed nine months, but set the tone for mornings in Nova Scotia for two generations. Mr. Little decided to hire Don Connolly as a host on the show, starting a highly successful 42-year run on the airwaves. Ms. Richardson said Mr. Little got a kick out of being invited to Mr. Connolly’s retirement party in 2018, where he told the crowd: ‘If you only really make one decision as boss, it’s good to see that it worked out well for more than 40 years.’

“Mr. Little left the CBC to work for the federal government in Ottawa, first as a staff member in the Privy Council Office, then at the Canada Development Corp. While he enjoyed the work, Ms. Richardson said writing remained his passion. When former Financial Times colleague Timothy Pritchard, a senior editor at The Globe, called in 1984 to offer a reporting job that paid considerably less than he made as a civil servant, Mr. Little jumped at the opportunity.

“‘Every good business newspaper needs a good economics reporter, because he or she will have a mind full of stats and indicators that are the makings of stories,’ Mr. Pritchard said. ‘Back in the eighties, when the news lineup was looking thin on any day, I would wander over to Bruce, note our plight and ask if he had anything on his mental shelf that could be worked into a stand-up news feature for the front page. He would invariably say: ‘Let me think about it.’ And at that point, I had no doubt he would deliver.'”