Althia Raj is a Canadian political journalist and a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.[1][2][3] She is a regular columnist with the Toronto Star.[4]
She was formerly the Ottawa Bureau Chief for HuffPost Canada, where she managed the Quebec City bureau and hosted and produced the politics podcast Follow-Up[5][3] until BuzzFeed purchased HuffPost and abruptly ended Canadian operations. Her team has held live town halls with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,[6] Finance minister Bill Morneau and Heritage minister Mélanie Joly.[7] She went to school at McGill University,[8] and is a francophone.
Prior to joining HuffPost in August 2011,[9] Raj worked as a national political reporter for Postmedia News and has also reported from Parliament Hill for Sun Media and has been a producer for CTV and for CBC Radio's weekly national political magazine, The House.[3][5]
Raj was also a regular panelist on CBC News Network's Power & Politics program and appears weekly as a panelist alongside Andrew Coyne and Chantal Hébert on At Issue on CBC's The National hosted by Rosemary Barton. Raj also assists with coverage on various CPAC programs.[5][3][10]
In 2016, Raj was in conflict with Senator Leo Housakos when she named him as the source of a leak regarding the Senate's spending audit the previous year. Housakos replied by accusing Raj of conducting a smear campaign against him and demanded an apology when she accused him of lying.[2]
On February 28, 2018, Raj moderated the second all-candidates debate for the 2018 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election.[11][12]
Before becoming a journalist, Raj worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. She later worked at the Canadian Mission to the United Nations in New York City.[1] She has written an e-book called Contender: The Justin Trudeau Story.[13]
