OTTAWA, ON, April 30, 2026 /CNW/ - The Michener Awards Foundation is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2025 Michener Award, recognizing excellence in public service journalism in Canada.
The Michener Award honours journalism with significant, positive impact. This year's finalists represent outstanding investigative work from news organizations across the country, exposing wrongdoing, informing public policy, and driving meaningful change.
"These newsrooms exemplify the very best of Canadian journalism," said Margo Goodhand, President of the Michener Awards Foundation. "Their work demonstrates the essential role of a free press in holding institutions accountable, amplifying underreported issues, and safeguarding the public interest. This year's investigations have led to real and measurable change across the country."
The Michener Award, Canada's highest honour in journalism, was founded in 1970 to recognize excellence in public-service journalism. The decisions of the independent jury, led by Chief Judge Katherine Sedgwick, are heavily influenced by the degree of public benefit generated by the print, broadcast and online stories submitted for consideration.
The winner of the 2025 Michener Award will be announced at a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Thursday, June 18, 2026.
The finalists for the 2025 Michener Award are:
CTV News -- Sleeping With The Enemy
The small team at CTV's W5: Avery Haines Investigates produced a gut-wrenching story about men who use the Internet to share intimate videos of their unsuspecting partners. "Sleeping With the Enemy" is a taut exposé of the online trade in images taken by trusted partners who use easily obtained date-rape drugs on their girlfriends and then violate them on video. The investigation began when a woman referred to as Melanie reached out to CTV. She provided digital evidence that led to an extended undercover investigation and the discovery of images of many other women. CTV shared its findings with police in Canada and Switzerland. The story has had a sweeping impact, leading to more than 60 criminal charges involving at least 14 victims. Health Canada is investigating a Canadian company selling date-rape drugs online. A member of Parliament is preparing a private member's bill to strengthen the Criminal Code. While victims are still haunted by the knowledge that their intimate images exist online, the program has made us all aware of this new trend of intimate-partner violence.
The Globe and Mail -- Alberta Health Procurement Controversy
In an investigation whose repercussions continued to be felt into 2026, The Globe and Mail delved into ties between Alberta government officials and companies that received contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide health services. Globe reporters did a deep dive into the background of the man behind the companies. They revealed his connections with highly placed members of the government, including hosting the premier, cabinet ministers and senior government staffers in Edmonton Oilers box seats during the NHL playoffs. They found that he was part-owner of private surgical facilities negotiating a contract with the government at prices more than double those of a competing firm. And they revealed that the province had paid six times more than usual for a 2022 contract with one of his companies to import children's pain medication. Finally, they discovered that two senior purchasing officials at the Alberta health agency had also been directors of a company with ties to the same businessman. Three days after the Globe published a wide-ranging report summing up its findings, the government announced it was ending contract negotiations with the companies. An RCMP investigation into the health authority's procurement irregularities continued.
La Presse -- Chauffeurs Inc.
The result of a combined effort by nearly 10 journalists from La Presse, this investigation revealed the public danger posed by what has come to be known as "Chauffeurs Inc." These are truck drivers we see every day on our roads, hauling heavy loads despite lacking the training and working conditions necessary to ensure public safety. La Presse revealed that thanks to a federal tax loophole, trucking companies were hiring such workers as subcontractors, cutting costs by paying them less and not providing the benefits – or training – that salaried employees would get. The reporters talked to veteran truck drivers who say they fear being on the road after seeing "Chauffeurs Inc." drivers talking on cellphones or even watching videos while behind the wheel. They revealed that drivers were falsifying records of driving and rest hours; in one fatal accident, the truck driver had been behind the wheel for 57 hours straight. The reporting resulted in Ottawa closing the tax loophole and the Quebec government increasing security measures for its highway safety inspectors. La Presse's work shed light on problems that literally constitute a matter of life and death for each of us.
Radio-Canada -- Dérives: le labyrinthe de Lyme
Haunted by the high-profile suicide of a young woman who believed she was suffering from a debilitating malady diagnosed by a doctor as chronic Lyme disease, pharmacist/journalist Olivier Bernard decided to delve into the complex, emotional issues surrounding the diagnosis, and whether so-called chronic Lyme disease exists at all. Five previous suicides in Quebec had also been linked to the disease by the media and advocacy groups. Hundreds of patients were convinced it was the cause of their suffering. But as the fourth season of his Radio-Canada podcast Dérives revealed, after 18 months of meticulous research and scores of interviews, Bernard found no clinical or scientific evidence of chronic Lyme disease. At the same time, the reporting exposed a network of for-profit American and Canadian clinics that persuaded patients they had the disease and prescribed long-term antibiotics for them – a treatment that is unproven and risky. The impact of exposing the myths surrounding "chronic Lyme disease" was profound. Quebec health authorities overhauled medical training programs and drug oversight committees to reflect Radio-Canada's findings, several doctors were disciplined, and many patients stopped their antibiotic treatment and reported feeling better, knowing their very real suffering was not caused by chronic Lyme disease.
The Trillium -- Skills Development Fund Investigation
A fund channeling taxpayers' dollars into worker-training programs became a cause célèbre at the Ontario legislature in 2025, thanks to an investigation by reporters at the small digital news operation the Trillium. They found multiple examples of firms well-connected to the government getting large grants from the fund at the insistence of the labour minister's office – despite middling or low ratings given to their applications by the nonpartisan civil servants vetting them. The Trillium's revelations were backed up in a report from the province's auditor-general, who found that the labour ministry's selection of funding recipients had not been "fair, transparent or accountable." It was the Trillium that revealed why the labour minister was absent from Queen's Park on the day the auditor released her report: he was in Paris for the wedding of a friend who was the lobbyist for two companies to which his ministry had awarded millions of Skills Development dollars. The fallout from the revelations included an investigation by the province's integrity commissioner into the labour minister; two police investigations into groups that got money from the fund; and even lawsuits by the government against two recipients, attempting to recover the taxpayer money it had awarded them.
Winnipeg Free Press -- Classroom Confidential
The province of Manitoba launched its new teacher registry and independent education commissioner's office in January 2025, saying it would "improve accountability and transparency." Following a tip, the Winnipeg Free Press discovered that the new commissioner tasked with teacher oversight in Manitoba was, in fact, simultaneously employed with a major teachers' union in Saskatchewan. The Free Press went on to test the province's new oversight system, finding the online registry was prone to technical malfunctions and provided virtually no information about teacher misconduct or criminal activity. And then the investigation went to the heart of the issue, reporting on the devastating human impact of an oversight system that allowed abusive teachers to quietly resign without any real accountability. In addition to raising awareness and empowering parents, the Free Press's reporting on the handling of teacher misconduct in Manitoba led to systemic change. It prompted resignations, new regulations, improvements to the online registry, the creation of an advisory committee to improve teacher oversight, and a letter from the Manitoba Teachers' Society to members clarifying that its Code of Professional Practice does not prevent teachers from reporting colleagues when a child's safety is at risk.
2026 Michener Award Judges
Chief Judge Katherine Sedgwick, former deputy editor of the Montreal Gazette
Guy Gendron, broadcast media journalist and former ombudsman for CBC Radio Canada
Rod Mickleburgh, longtime journalist, now retired after more than 20 years with the Globe and Mail
Kristy Snell, longtime CBC journalist, now a journalism professor at Concordia University
Marie Thompson, retired CBC journalist, specializing in TV documentaries about the environment and rural Canada
About the Michener Awards Foundation
The Michener Awards Foundation celebrates and supports excellence in public service journalism in Canada. Through its annual awards and fellowships, the Foundation encourages investigative reporting and the pursuit of stories that serve the public good.
Our thanks to Cision for sponsoring this announcement.
SOURCE Michener Awards Foundation
Media Contact: Jill Clark, Senior Advisor, Rideau Hall Foundation, 613-619-0230, [email protected]
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