CBC Saskatoon and Globe and Mail jointly win Michener Award for excellence in public service journalism

CBC Saskatoon reporter Jason Warick and the Globe and Mail have jointly won the 2021 Michener Award for their storytelling about residential school abuses.

The Michener Award recognizes excellence in public service journalism.

After two years of virtual ceremonies, an in-person ceremony was held Friday to honour the finalists and winners for both 2021 and 2022. Other finalists included Radio-Canada, The Eastern Graphic, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Global News and Kamloops This Week. See the full list here.

Warick broke the story that the Catholic church — which had run the majority of the country's government-funded residential schools — had paid out just a fraction of the $79 million it promised years ago to survivors. Instead, millions had been funnelled from that account to pay the church's legal fees to lawyers and administration. And even as the church said it could not meet its fundraising goal for survivors, CBC revealed it was spending nearly $300 million on cathedrals and church buildings

The Globe and Mail team was also on the story, conducting the first-ever analysis of the Catholic church's net assets in Canada, amplifying the voices of survivors, fighting to obtain RCMP and church records, and producing more than a dozen stories in 2021 that scrutinized the church's financial obligations to Indigenous peoples. 

Other CBC finalists for the 2021 Michener Award included The Fifth Estate and CBC Podcasts for their 2021 investigation of Peter Nygard and Evil by Design and CBC Saskatchewan and Geoff Leo for Indigenous or pretender? 

CBC Saskatchewan and Leo were also 2022 finalists for the feature Disputed History.