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Born in Montreal, Quebec, Spector received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Political Science, from McGill University in 1970. Awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, he received a Master of Philosophy degree in Political Science from Columbia University in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1977. In 1974, as a Newhouse Fellow, he received a Master of Science degree in Television, Film and Radio from Syracuse University. In 1974-75, Spector was a lecturer at St. Paul's College of the University of Ottawa.

In 1975, he joined the Ontario civil service in the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and held the positions of Manager, Director, and Executive Director. In 1980, he joined the British Columbia civil service serving as Deputy Secretary, Policy for the Ministry of Intergovernmental Relations. From 1982 to 1986, he was Deputy Minister in Bill Bennett's Office of the Premier. From 1986 to 1990, he was Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations in Ottawa. From 1990 to 1992, he wasBrian Mulroney's Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister.

From 1992 to 1995, he was Ambassador of Canada to Israel, the first Jewish Canadian to hold the post, and High Commissioner to Cyprus. After the Oslo peace agreement was signed in 1994, he became Canada's first Representative to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. From 1995 to 1996, he was President of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

Resigning from the public service in 1996, he became Vice-President, Corporate Affairs for Imperial Tobacco Limited in September of that year. In January 1997, he was appointed Publisher of The Jerusalem Post.

Since 1995, he has been writing for The Globe and Mail, and he currently writes a bi-weekly column in French for Le Devoir. He published a book, Chronicle of a War Foretold: How Mideast Peace Became America’s Fight in 2003 and, a year later, wrote about his experience working for PM Brian Mulroney in the Afterword to "A Secret Trial"--William Kaplan's second book on what is popularly known as the Airbus affair. Spector appeared as a witness in early 2008 at the Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee's hearings on relations between Mulroney and German-Canadian lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, which is formally known as the review of the Airbus settlement. A public inquiry, called by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will also take place on these matters, following the Ethics Committee's hearings.

In 2006, Spector gained a considerable amount of press coverage for referring to Belinda Stronach as "a bitch". [1] [2] [3]