Canadian Association of Journalists celebrates excellence in Canadian journalism from 2024 at annual awards gala
Press Release
June 1, 2025
The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) capped off its 2025 national conference weekend by presenting this year’s CAJ Awards, Canada’s preeminent national investigative journalism awards program, run by and for journalists, at a gala dinner held earlier this evening at the Delta Hotel in downtown Calgary.
Jeff Hamilton and Katrina Clarke, from the Winnipeg Free Press, were awarded this year’s McGillivray Award, which recognizes the program’s best investigative journalism published or broadcast in 2024.
The McGillivray jury concluded that Hamilton and Clarke’s exposé of the many cracks in Manitoba’s childcare system bore all the hallmarks of excellent investigative work — it brought clarity to complex subjects and used vivid personal examples to convey systemic flaws.
Hamilton and Clarke were also recognized as winners in the Written News category.
The CAJ Awards were presented in a bilingual ceremony hosted by Joelle Tomlinson (Global News) and Tiphanie Roquette (Radio-Canada). Finalists who were unable to attend the in-person event were invited to participate remotely. The entire ceremony was live-streamed on the CAJ’s YouTube channel.
This year’s program marked the first time the CAJ has celebrated excellent journalism from nominees with gold and silver awards.
Here are the gold and silver winners, chosen from a record 540 entries across 18 categories.
The recipients in the WRITTEN NEWS category are:
GOLD
Jeff Hamilton, Katrina Clarke
Building blocks, crumbling foundation
Winnipeg Free Press
SILVER (tie)
Grant Robertson, Kathryn Blaze Baum
The algorithm
The Globe and Mail
Wendy Gillis, Jennifer Pagliaro
The invisible girl
Toronto Star
The recipients in the HUGO RODRIGUES AWARD FOR COMMUNITY NEWS (formerly Community Written) category are:
GOLD
Heather Wright
York 1 environmental
The Independent of Petrolia and Central Lambton
SILVER
Jessica Lee
Grizzly bears back in crosshairs
Rocky Mountain Outlook
The recipients in the BROADCAST OVER FIVE MINUTES category are:
GOLD
Brandi Morin, Geordie Day
The Apache Stronghold standing in the way of a massive copper mine
Ricochet Media
SILVER
Brittany Guyot, Tom Fennario
Food for profit
APTN Investigates
The recipients in the BROADCAST UNDER FIVE MINUTES category are:
GOLD
Romain Schue, Thomas Bignon
Dans les coulisses des traversées clandestines avec des passeurs indiens
Radio-Canada Info
SILVER
Davide Gentile, Daniel Boily, Jacques Racine, Ivanoh Demers
Une plaie de lit fatale pour un tétraplégique
Radio-Canada Info
The recipients in the COMMUNITY BROADCAST category are:
GOLD
Lela Savić, Emmanuelle Moussa
Pas tout Montréal
La Converse
SILVER
Taryn Grant
On the doorstep
CBC Atlantic Voice
The recipients in the DATA JOURNALISM category are:
GOLD
Valérie Ouellet, Mike Crawley, Aloysius Wong, Andreas Wesley
Canada’s international student spike was blamed on private colleges. Here’s what really happened
CBC News – Investigative Unit
SILVER
Sylvie Fournier, Daniel Tremblay, Benoît Michaud, Jo-Ann Demers
Eglise catholique inc.
Radio-Canada Info
The recipients in the ONLINE MEDIA category are:
GOLD
Chris Beaver, Katie O’Connor, Jasmine El Kurd, Pam Palmater
NDN POV
TVO Today
SILVER
Robert Cribb, Declan Keogh, Norma Hilton, Scott Martin, Rhythm Sachdeva
Lead in drinking water
Investigative Journalism Bureau
The recipients in the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION JOURNALISM category are:
GOLD
Caroline Touzin, Ariane Lacoursière
Centres jeunesse et foyers de groupe de la DPJ : De plus en plus de mesures de contention ou d’isolement
La Presse
SILVER
Amanda Follett Hosgood
BC illegally collected personal info tied to the Wet’suwet’en conflict
The Tyee
This award is kindly sponsored by the Ken and Debbie Rubin Public Interest Advocacy Fund.
The recipients in the PHOTOJOURNALISM category are:
GOLD
Martin Tremblay
New hope for Syria
La Presse
SILVER
Carlos Osorio
Portfolio
Reuters, The Globe and Mail
The recipients in the SCOOP category are:
ILR5
