BIOGRAPHY
Dave Taylor is a journalist, broadcaster and former politician. Dave hosts his own talk show weekday afternoons from 12:30-3:00 PM MT and co-hosts with Angela Kokott from 3:00-4:00 PM on News Talk 770 (CHQR) Calgary.
Dave began his career at radio stations in London and Ottawa, spending 10 years in Toronto at CHUM and CHUM-FM before coming west in 1985 as News Director at 107 KIK-FM (now Q107). His career in talk radio began in 1995 on CHQR, and over the next nine years his show became popular enough that he actually got elected as a Liberal (!) MLA in 2004 in Calgary-Currie — a constituency that had never elected a Liberal previously.
Dave was re-elected to his second term in 2008. On April 12th, 2010, Dave left the Alberta Liberal Caucus to sit as an Independent. On January 24, 2011, Dave made history by becoming the first Alberta Party MLA in the Legislature. Deciding not to run for a third term in 2012, Dave returned to the airwaves 16 months after leaving office. In hindsight, the time off looks less like “retirement” and more like a gap year (albeit forty years after high school graduation).
Dave has been a sessional instructor at Mount Royal University (MRU) and a member of MRU’s broadcast advisory committee. He has been honoured with two Ohio State Awards of Excellence in Public Affairs Broadcasting and was a finalist in the documentary category of the International Radio Festival of New York.
Dave’s involvement in Calgary’s Urban Parks Project River Valleys Master Plan and position as the founding chair of the Southland Natural Park Society resulted in the protection of this natural area from development. He was a long time stewardship volunteer at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary – one of his favourite spots in the city.
Dave is an active member of McDougall United Church in Calgary, in part because he’s hoping that after a lifetime of s***-disturbing and general obnoxiousness, God will forgive him and let him into Heaven when he dies — where he hopes to find at least one or two other journalists he knows, although perhaps no politicians.
His passions are birding, gardening, travel, music, and food. He is not passionate about running or exercise; he does it religiously in order to indulge his passion for food. He is curious about almost everything. He loves his spouse Martha and his grown-up offspring Scott and Jennifer, and is amazed and delighted that they love him.
