| D.M. LeBourdais | |
| Birth Date: | 1887 |
| Birth Place: | Clinton, British Columbia, Canada |
| Death Place: | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Period: | 20th century |
| Genre: | History, non-fiction |
| Subject: | Economics |
Donat Marc LeBourdais (1887 - November 8, 1964) was a Canadian non-fiction writer and political activist. He wrote eight books during his lifetime, including six on Canada's economic history, a financial investment guide and a biography of explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.[1]
Born in Clinton, British Columbia and raised in Barkerville, he worked for the Yukon Telegraph Service before moving to Ottawa in 1919.[1] He founded the shortlived journal Canadian Nation, before joining a press syndicate to report on Stefansson's expedition to Wrangel Island.[1] He moved to Toronto in 1926, and began to write for periodicals including the Canadian Geographical Journal, Maclean's, Empire Review, Saturday Night and The Beaver.[2] During World War II, he was also employed as an administrator with the Wartime Prices and Trade Board.[1]
As an activist he was the founding executive secretary of the National Railway League, an organization formed to defend public ownership of the Canadian National Railway,[3] and served on the boards of the National Committee on Mental Hygiene and the Mental Patients Welfare Association.[4] He ran for election to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1935 federal election as a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation candidate in the electoral district of High Park, but lost to Alexander James Anderson.[5]
He married journalist Isabel LeBourdais in 1942. Isabel was noted for her 1966 book The Trial of Steven Truscott.[6] They raised four children. Their grandchildren include Mark LeBourdais, a musician who was associated with the band King Apparatus in the 1990s.