TORONTO, June 1, 2024 /CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) was pleased to acknowledge and celebrate the recipients of this year's CAJ Awards for outstanding investigative journalism at an awards gala held earlier this evening at Toronto's historic Reference Library.

The Montreal Gazette's Aaron Derfel was awarded this year's McGillivray Award, which recognizes the program's best investigative journalism published or broadcast in 2023. Derfel's work exposed egregious failures in care within the city's Lakeshore Hospital emergency department. His empathetic reporting showed how family members and staff members struggled with how a number of patients died in the facility's care, and how the institution's responses failed to respond to what happened or lead to changes.

Earlier in the evening, Derfel was also recognized for his excellent work by being named the winner in the Written News category.  

The CAJ Awards were presented by hosts Colin D'Mello and Valérie Ouellet in a bilingual ceremony, as part of the CAJ's 2024 national conference. Finalists who were unable to attend the in-person event were invited to participate remotely. The entire ceremony was livestreamed on the CAJ's Facebook page.

The full list of this year's awards categories and winners are listed below.   

The recipient in the WRITTEN NEWS category is:

Aaron Derfel
Staff haunted by suicide and other deaths at the Lakeshore Hospital ER
The Gazette, Montreal

The recipient in the HUGO RODRIGUES AWARD FOR COMMUNITY NEWS category is:

Simon Lewsen
The crisis after the crisis
The Local, Toronto

(At the ceremony, we renamed this award to honour our longtime awards program administrator Hugo Rodrigues, to mark his final year leading the CAJ Awards)

The recipient in the BROADCAST OVER FIVE MINUTES category is:

Fifth Estate team
Making an icon
CBC News – The Fifth Estate

The recipients in the BROADCAST UNDER FIVE MINUTES category are:

Anaïs Elboujdaini, Yohan Hache, Rémy Ogez, Béchir Mogaadi
"J'ai commencé à avoir des plaies": Les ravages de la zombie dope pourraient gagner le Canada
Noovo Info

The recipient in the COMMUNITY BROADCAST category is:

Jacqueline McKay
Sinixt want a say in Columbia River Treaty renegotiations
CBC News – Indigenous / CBC News – Vancouver

The recipient in the DATA JOURNALISM category is:

Patti Sonntag
COVID test supplier received billions in pandemic contracts after submitting edited results
Global News

The recipient in the ONLINE MEDIA category is:

Carl Meyer
Pathways to net-zero
The Narwhal

The recipient in the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION JOURNALISM category are:

Tom Cardoso, Robyn Doolittle, Carys Mills, Mahima Singh, Ming Wong
Secret Canada
The Globe and Mail

This award is kindly sponsored by the Ken and Debbie Rubin Public Interest Advocacy Fund.

The recipient in the PHOTOJOURNALISM category is:

Martin Tremblay
The Battle of Bakhmut
La Presse, Montréal

The recipient in the SCOOP category is:

Isabelle Dubé
Des offres bidon pour hausser les prix
La Presse, Montréal

The recipients in the DAILY EXCELLENCE category are:

Ollie Williams, Emily Blake, Sarah Pruys
Live coverage of the N.W.T. wildfire crisis
Cabin Radio, Yellowknife

The recipient in the WRITTEN FEATURE category is:

Moira Donovan
In cod's shadow, redfish rise
Freelance / Hakai Magazine

The recipient in the COMMUNITY WRITTEN FEATURE category is:

Marcus Bankuti
List of names of sexual abusers includes Jesuits in Kahnawake and Spanish, Ontario
The Eastern Door, Kahnawake, Que.

The recipient in the JHR / CAJ AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTING is:

Brittany Guyot
Inside corrections: 2,180 days
APTN Investigates

The recipient of the JHR / CAJ EMERGING INDIGENOUS JOURNALIST AWARD is:

Dionne Phillips
Portfolio
IndigiNews / The Wren

The recipients in the CWA CANADA / CAJ AWARD FOR LABOUR REPORTING are:

Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Rachel Mendleson
Work forced
Toronto Star

The recipient in the APTN / CAJ TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION AWARD is:

Amanda Follett Hosgood
A tribunal examines the RCMP's handling of abuse allegations in Burns Lake
The Tyee

The recipients in the ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE category are:

Brandi Morin, Amber Bracken
On the ground with Indigenous communities fleeing a climate inferno
Freelance / Ricochet Media / The Real News Network / IndigiNews

The recipient in the STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE is:

Daysha Loppie
Growing up on the 36 Finch West
Toronto Metropolitan University / The Local

Consistent with information in the entry package instructions, judges had the discretion to name between one and five finalists in each award category. There were a total 474 entries for the 2023 awards program.

We thank the experienced current and former journalists who willingly volunteered their time and efforts to review all the entries and name the finalists and winners in each category. This awards program doesn't function without journalists and their newsrooms stepping forward to submit their work for review and consideration, or the judges who take on the task of reviewing that work.

The CAJ congratulates all the recipients and finalists and thanks all those who submitted entries for consideration. Many judges once again noted the excellent quality and breadth of work contained within the pieces submitted into the program.

Journalists continue to produce striking, important, and meaningful work that educates, informs, exposes, uncovers, affects change, and makes our communities better places to live. The CAJ is proud to play a role in recognizing the best of this work on an annual basis.

The CAJ is Canada's largest national professional organization for journalists from all media, representing members across the country. The CAJ's primary roles are to provide high-quality professional development for its members and public-interest advocacy.

SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists