About Maclean’s

Maclean’s is Canada’s most important general-interest publication: an indispensable source of ideas, in-depth reporting and sharp analysis about this country and the people who live here. Over more than a century, it has expanded from a trade digest for small-business owners into a multi-platform media enterprise that now encompasses a website, a monthly print magazine and a newsletter. Since 1991, Maclean’s has also produced Canada’s most authoritative higher education content, providing essential information for students applying to post-secondary schools, including its trademark annual university rankings. In every iteration, Maclean’s supplies Canadians with timely, captivating, rigorously crafted journalism about the issues that matter most to them.

Maclean’s got its name and legacy from its first owner and publisher, John Bayne Maclean, a small-town minister’s son turned media wizard. In 1905, he purchased an ad agency’s in-house business journal. The first issue of what would become Maclean’s—originally called The Busy Man’s Magazine—features a selection of republished articles from around the world, including an investigation into American women in business (a new phenomenon at the time), a profile of electricity pioneer George Westinghouse and a work of short fiction called “Pigs Is Pigs.” Maclean renamed the magazine after himself in 1911 and, in coming years, built a publishing portfolio that included the Financial Post, Chatelaine and Canadian Home and Garden. 

Since its inception, Maclean’s has reinvented itself many times over. In its early years, it was a monthly cultural forum, publishing work by Canadian luminaries like L.M. Montgomery and Stephen Leacock and artwork by members of the Group of Seven. In the 1920s, as Canada entered an industrial boom time, it transformed into a bi-monthly magazine with a circulation of 70,000. It grew once again during the Second World War, producing a large-format “overseas edition” for the men stationed overseas (the circulation for that edition was a staggering 800,000).

In the post-war era, under editors like Pierre Berton and Peter C. Newman, Maclean’s settled into its role as the chief chronicler of Canada and its place in the world. As a weekly source of news and analysis, it kept tabs on the country’s main characters—people like Pierre and Maggie Trudeau, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, who represented Canada’s newfound freewheeling modernity. It provided dispatches from such nation-defining moments as the Quiet Revolution, the Meech Lake Accord and the Indigenous reconciliation movement. Entering the new millennium under leadership of editor Ken Whyte, the magazine became a forum for bold opinion columns from writers like Andrew Coyne, Mark Steyn and Anne Kingston, stoking conversation and controversy across the country and challenging long-held cultural orthodoxy. 

At the beginning of 2022, Maclean’s emerged with an ambitious new mandate: to publish the country’s finest longform journalism and to set the agenda with its bold story selection. Our editors have shifted away from its newsweekly past and are leaning into the best of what a magazine brand can do: leading the conversation with deeply reported investigative pieces, creative visual storytelling and provocative opinion writing. We work with the country’s smartest writers to deliver fascinating, timely, informative journalism on the issues affecting Canadians today, including tech innovation, climate change, immigration, housing, political polarization and health care—pieces that reveal the story of Canada and its people in all their thorny complexity.

As the threat of climate change loomed, we published “Canada in 2060,” Anne Shibata Casselman’s sweeping look at how global warming will reshape the country. Michelle Cyca’s powerful, rigorous investigation “The Curious Case of Gina Adams” examined the rise of Indigenous identity fraud in academia. We hired Chris Nuttall-Smith, one of Canada’s sharpest writers on food, to survey the post-pandemic dining world in “The Best Places to Eat in Canada.” And as public opinion on immigration shifted, we devoted an entire issue to the subject, investigating how Canada hit 41 million people.

In its latest editorial incarnation, Maclean’s has won 12 National Magazine Awards, including prizes in investigative journalism, long-form journalism and service journalism. In 2023, it was crowned Best Magazine in Canada. The magazine has also launched a popular live events series, hosting summits on subjects like Education, AI and the Year Ahead, which bring together the country’s top experts for evenings of conversation, snacks and networking. 

Today, Maclean’s has more than 3.5 million readers per month across its print and digital platforms. Join them by subscribing to Maclean’s; signing up for our bi-weekly newsletter, The Best of Maclean’s; and following the brand on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky and TikTok. Our digital archive, available via subscription, offers complete access to every issue from the magazine’s 120-year history.

Maclean’s Education
In 1991, Maclean’s launched its inaugural University Rankings and quickly became the definitive voice on post-secondary education in Canada. In addition to our highly anticipated yearly rankings, we publish the Ultimate Guide to Canadian Universities and the Ultimate Guide to Canadian Colleges, jam-packed with useful information for high schoolers, their families, guidance counsellors, people switching careers or upgrading skills, and anyone else involved in making these life decisions. We identify the best programs, provide tips on applications and scholarships, and offer up-to-date insight on what it’s like to enter a university or college right now.