2015 Michener Award

Their Excellencies the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, and Mrs. Sharon Johnston hosted the presentation ceremony of the Michener Award for outstanding public service in journalism, and the Michener-Deacon Fellowships. The event took place at Rideau Hall on June 17, 2016.

"You know press freedoms exist because what we don’t know can hurt us. And you know journalists are targeted because what they do matters. What you and your news organizations do matters."

Mr. Russell Mills, President of the Michener Awards Foundation, presented the 2015 Michener finalists and the recipients of the 2016 Michener-Deacon Fellowships.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Reporting is awarded to Paul Webster for his proposal to research the secretive world of prison health care, specifically hepatitis C among inmates. The rate of hepatitis infection among Canada's 15 000 federal prisoners is at least 10 times higher than in the general Canadian population. Through a series of access to information requests, extensive interviews, and detailed medical and statistical analyses, Mr. Webster will look into whether our policies and practices are indeed allowing thousands of people to die of entirely preventable causes. Mr. Webster is an award-winning freelance print journalist who has written on health issues in many major Canadian publications.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education is awarded to Patti Sonntag for her proposal to lead a class on an investigation into resource extraction companies. The resource sector accounts for nearly 20% of Canada's GDP, almost $500 billion. To date, extraction companies have not received much attention in the media, both because of their complexity and because the extraction sites are often remote. Ms. Sonntag will guide students in using the Corporate Mapping Project's database and network visualization tool, which tracks the fossil fuel sector’s influence on our country’s economy and policies. She hopes this course will lay the foundation for a new data journalism certificate program at Concordia University. Ms. Sonntag is currently a managing editor in the New York Times’ News Services division and will be returning home to Montréal to take up this project.

The Michener-Baxter Special Award was presented to Mr. David Humphreys, who has given each challenge, no matter how small, his full attention, ensuring the Michener Award Foundation found success. Mr. Humphreys was instrumental in creating and raising funds for a second Michener-Deacon fellowship directed at journalism education. His fundraising efforts have also helped to keep the Foundation’s books balanced. He was president of the Foundation from 2005 to 2010, has acted as chief of the judging process, and has been a member of the executive since 2000.

The 2015 Michener Award was presented to Jean Pelletier for L‘émission Enquête de la Société Radio-Canada Abus de la SQ : les femmes brisent le silence. Le documentaire de l’émission Enquête tentait de trouver des réponses à la disparition d’une Autochtone de Val-d’Or, en Abitibi, et au piétinement de l’enquête policière. Le reportage a pris une tournure inattendue lorsque des amies de la personne disparue, Sindy Ruperthouse, se sont mises à raconter les agressions physiques et sexuelles qu’elles avaient subies aux mains d’agents de la Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Pour la première fois, ces femmes vulnérables et marginalisées ont osé parler sans crainte de représailles. Elles ont soulevé des allégations détaillées d’intimidation et de violence, d’actes sexuels tarifés sollicités par des policiers et de « cures géographiques » (l’acte de conduire quelqu’un à l’extérieur de la ville et l’obliger à revenir à pied en plein hiver pour qu’il dégrise). Peu après la diffusion de l’émission, le gouvernement du Québec a ordonné une enquête policière. En fin de compte, huit agents de la SQ ont été suspendus ou assignés à du travail de bureau, une observatrice indépendante a été nommée, 6 millions de dollars ont été versés pour le financement de projets d’aide aux femmes autochtones de Val-d’Or et la Sûreté du Québec a relancé son enquête sur la disparition de Sindy Ruperthouse.