She spent her childhood and adolescence in Milton, Ontario.[1] She first developed her skills as a journalist while at the University of Western Ontario, where she was an editor of the UWO Gazette, the student newspaper.[2]
In 2011, Delacourt was selected by her peers as the recipient of the Charles Lynch Award, for lifetime achievement in political writing.[3] In 2012, Delacourt was named by Canadian political newspaper Hill Times as one of "The Top 100 Most Influential People in Government and Politics".[3] In 2007, she was among the first inductees into Milton's Walk of Fame for the town's 150th anniversary to honor her achievements.[4]
Delacourt is a senior writer at the Toronto Star.[5] Previously, she was the senior political writer at the National Post, a columnist and feature writer at the Ottawa Citizen and, for sixteen years,[2] a parliamentary correspondent and editorial board member of The Globe and Mail. She is a graduate the University of Western Ontario (1982, majoring in Political Science).[2] She is also a Masters student in the School of Political Studies at Carleton University, studying "consumerism and material culture, and their intersection with citizenship/democracy/politics".[6]
Delacourt is the author of four books on Canadian politics: United We Fall: The Crisis of Democracy in Canada (1993), an account of the failure of the Charlottetown Accord,[7]Shaughnessy: The Passionate Politics of Shaughnessy Cohen (2000), concerning the late Member of Parliament, Juggernaut: Paul Martin's Campaign for Chretien's Crown (2003), and Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them (2013). Shopping for Votes was a shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.[8]
