Rosa Harris-Adler

Rosa Harris-Adler, who teaches at Royal Roads University and has written for virtually every Canadian periodical, is a two-time National Magazine Award winner and was shortlisted for a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Award in 2007. For nearly a decade, she was editor of Ottawa City magazine and a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen. She has served as a judge for both the National Magazine Awards and the National Newspaper Awards.

Ian Haysom

Ian Haysom divides his week between Vancouver and Central Saanich. He is the news director for Global News in B.C.

Jim Hume

Jim Hume was born in Warwickshire, England, Dec. 27, 1923. He came to Canada in 1948 and worked as a deckhand, logger, truck driver and free-lance feature writer before joining the now defunct Nanaimo Free Press as sports editor in 1954.

Since then his journalistic journey has taken him to the Alberni and Okanagan Valleys, the Alberta and British Columbia Legislatures. Hume says he had a mid-life crisis stint as news director in radio and hosted a weekly politicians meet the press TV show for several years.

Officially retired from covering the B.C. legislature at the age of 70 in 1993, he continued to write three columns a week until 1996. Since then he has written a weekly column on assorted topics.

Hume holds an Honorary Life Membership in BC Legislature Press Gallery; was the 1994 recipient of the Jack Webster-Bruce Hutchison Award for a Lifetime Achievement of Excellence in Journalism; received the 2002 Queen's Jubilee medal for community service and the MacMillan-Bloedel Award, B.C. feature writing, for a series on native land claims.

Iain Hunter

Iain Hunter, who began his career in journalism as a police reporter on a bicycle with the old Victoria Times in 1961, is ending it as a columnist with the Times Colonist.

He was educated, formally, at Glenlyon, when it was just a boys' school on Beach Drive, Oak Bay High, Victoria College (as it was then), the University of B.C., Carleton University and King's College, London.

After three years on the Times, he moved to the Ottawa Journal, then back to the Vancouver Sun which he represented in the provincial legislature for nine years when it was dominated by W.A.C. Bennett, serving a term as president of the legislative Press Gallery, and correspondent for the Toronto Star.

He moved to Ottawa in 1972 as correspondent for the Vancouver sun and other papers in the FP group, including the Montreal Star, Ottawa Journal, Calgary Herald and the two Victoria papers, the Times and Colonist. In 1977 he joined the Ottawa Citizen, becoming national editor. He covered the Parliament of Canada for nearly 30 years.

Jack Knox

Jack Knox writes a local news column four days a week.

Since joining the Times Colonist in 1988, Jack has worked as a copy editor, city editor, editorial writer and editorial page editor. Prior to that he was an editor and reporter at newspapers in Campbell River, Regina and Kamloops.

As a journalist he has debated policy with the prime minister, sat down with a succession of premiers and interviewed a murderer in his cell. He liked the murderer. Career highlights include being blasted with blowhole spray by Luna the whale (it tasted like fish), interviewing a porn movie star in the nude (her, not him) and getting a phone call from Barack Obama four days before he (Obama, not Jack) was elected president.

You can follow him on Twitter at @jackknox

Les Leyne

Born in Rivers, Manitoba, Les Leyne was raised in Qualicum Beach.

Leyne attended Carleton University and UVic, where he graduated after working on the university newspaper. He worked at weekly newspapers in Duncan, where he covered the incineration of 13 tons of marijuana, and the west shore before joining the Times Colonist. Leyne was banished from the newsroom to the Legislature bureau in 1985 and has been there ever since.

His budget scoop in 1995 got him nominated for a Jack Webster Award and he claimed a share of the TC's 2003 Webster Award for political coverage.

He was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for column writing in 2008 and won the Jack Webster "City Mike" Award for commentary in 2009.

He writes four days a week on provincial affairs.

The Major

After an adolescence attending several well-known private schools where he was flogged for gross cheek, Nigel Smythe-Brown was rebuffed by every known institution of higher learning and so joined his father's regiment, the Queen's Own Rifles.

He went on to be arrested by the Provost Corps for non-payment of mess dues, so his father was forced to raise his rank to Major in order to keep him out of chains.

His writing career began at the regimental newspaper; for inexplicable reasons his column became quite popular and he enjoyed his time there until the lawsuits began after an ill-advised expose about the regimental padre and some missing sherry. In the fullness of time (one week later) he arrived in Victoria with his wife Kitty. He describes himself as a boulevardier, diarist, man about town and cat-hater of the first order.