Canadian Journalism Foundation Awards Gala

Toronto, Tuesday, June 9, 2009

It gives me great pleasure, as Governor General of Canada, but also as a former journalist, to present this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award to a leading figure in Canadian journalism.

Previous recipients of this award include Sally Armstrong, Norman Webster, Knowlton Nash, Pierre Berton, June Callwood, Doris Anderson, Trina McQueen, Doug Creighton, Mark Starowicz, Bernard Derome, Peter C. Newman, Peter Gzowski and Robert Fulford.

Tonight, we honour a man who has reported for CBC Television news from every corner of the world for four decades. His exciting career started in Prague in 1948 and has included positions as a writer, reporter, editor, foreign correspondent and political correspondent.

He has won several awards over the years, including four Geminis, the John Drainie Award for distinguished contribution to Canadian broadcasting, and a Hot Doc Award for documentary writing.

He has written a best seller called Time Zones, and narrated a film entitled The Power of Good, which won an International Emmy award in 2002. The film examines the exploits of Sir Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who saved more than 600 children from the Nazis in 1939 by organizing “Kinder-transports,” a transportation system from Prague to Britain.

In 1994, he was named a member of the Order of Canada.

On a more personal note, I would like to add that he used his talent and passion to present the facts and uncover the truth. In so doing, he helped Canadians contribute to the world’s evolution with insight and awareness.

The journalist I was and the Governor General I am know that journalism plays a vital role in asserting the civic responsibility of a community, a country and the world.

I know because I grew up in a country where journalists who dared to challenge censorship and tyranny were assassinated.

I know because when I was a journalist, I kept in mind and at heart the example set by those journalists who pursued the truth, often risking their lives to do so.

And during the State and official visits I have made as Governor General of Canada to Africa, Afghanistan, South America and Europe, and during my trips all across this country, I have seen that the pens, microphones and cameras wielded by journalists can also act as instruments of social transformation.

Faced with a world that always seems to be in crisis, robbed of its dignity, stripped of its beauty, divided in its fragility, warming at its poles, and assaulted by the fluctuations of its economies, we must also be given the power to reflect, to raise our awareness and to seek clarification.

I think that that is the most important—and noble—aspect of your profession.

And this is precisely what I will remind everyone tomorrow night at Rideau Hall, on the occasion of the presentation of the Michener Award for Journalism, where we will pay tribute to a number of media and journalists whose work has made a major contribution in raising public awareness on matters of significant national and international interest.

I believe that one day, one of these journalists, or maybe even a few, will find themselves receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, like the exceptional reporter we are honouring tonight who, though retired, continues to practice journalism with excellence on a contractual basis.

Let’s take a look at some of the many achievements of this year’s honouree . . . 

VIDEO

Ladies and gentlemen . . . Joe Schlesinger.