John Victor Maxwell Braithwaite was a Canadian novelist and non-fiction author. He was born in Nokomis, Saskatchewan and spent his youth in a number of communities in that province. As an adult he moved to Ontario, living in communities such as Orangeville, Port Carling and finally Brighton where he died at age 83. Braithwaite won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humor in 1972 for his book The Night We Stole the Mountie's Car. The 1977 Canadian film Why Shoot the Teacher? was based on Braithwaite's 1965 novel of that name.