Three 2026 Canadian Hillman Prizes awarded for original, groundbreaking journalism
TORONTO, March 24, 2026 /CNW/ - The Sidney Hillman Foundation announced today the winners of the 16th annual Canadian Hillman Prizes:
- Print/Digital – Brendan Kennedy at the Toronto Star for "The Maplehurst Riot Squad"
- Broadcast – Harvey Cashore, Mark Kelley, Eva Uguen-Csenge, Daniel LeBlanc, Allya Davidson, Emmanuel Marchand for "Tax Hack: Identity Theft" and "The Denial Machine," for CBC News the fifth estate
- Small Market/Local News– Robert Cribb, Laurie Few, Susanne Reber, Wendy-Ann Clarke, Bruce Edwards for "Arachnid: Hunting the Web's Darkest Secrets," for the Investigative Journalism Bureau, TVO Today, Piz Gloria Productions, and the Toronto Star
Brendan Kennedy reported that jail guards had meted out unjustified, brutal punishment to nearly 200 inmates at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex, including a violent, mass strip-search. The Ontario government and the correctional officers' union stonewalled and denied, but Kennedy found a video that proved it had happened. He broke story after story, each with new, shocking revelations. Jail officials launched a campaign to cover up what they had done, falsifying records, destroying potential evidence, and lying to investigators. To date, Ontario's Ministry of the Solicitor General has refused to provide Canadians with information about what a judge described as "a disgusting and gross abuse of power," one that should never have happened in Canada.
A years-long investigation by the CBC's the fifth estate revealed that hackers had infiltrated the computer files of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), stolen the identities of unsuspecting citizens, and routinely duped the CRA into paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus tax refunds to imposters. Instead of properly investigating the hack, the CRA persisted for years in demanding that its victims repay the stolen money, ruining lives in the process. Then the fifth estate discovered and reported on another breach involving stolen identity. It affected 28,000 medical workers whose records were stolen in 2009 from British Columbia's Interior Health (IH) agency and were still available for sale on the dark web. The province denied the hack, allowing identity scammers to steal from both the CRA and banks for more than a decade. Victims are still paying the price.
"Arachnid: Hunting the Web's Darkest Secrets" is a six-part podcast examining the efforts to end the massive, global online trade in child sex abuse material. A small Winnipeg-based, non-profit organization, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), has created a free, web-crawling tool that can quickly and easily trace the trade in these horrific images. All that stands in the way is the tech platforms' refusal to use it. The podcast takes listeners around the world, exposing the vastness of the problem, the moral, legal and ethical failures that have allowed it to continue, and the unending trauma of society's most vulnerable victims.
"This year's Hillman prize winners remind us that courageous journalism is the cornerstone of democracy," said Alex Dagg, Canadian board member of the Sidney Hillman Foundation. "By shining a light on government injustice, and holding the powerful to account, these journalists have upheld the public's right to know.'
The Sidney Hillman Foundation will celebrate the 2026 honourees on April 9th in Toronto.
The Sidney Hillman Foundation honours excellence in journalism in service of the common good. U.S. Hillman Prizes have been awarded annually since 1950 and the Canadian Hillman Prizes since 2011.
SOURCE The Sidney Hillman Foundation
For more information please contact: Alexandra Lescaze: [email protected]
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