This year’s Canadian Journalism Foundation’s (CJF) Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Michèle Ouimet in recognition of her fearless career and desire to tell impactful stories that provided a voice to the voiceless in Canada and abroad.
Until her retirement in 2020, Ouimet spent 29 years at La Presse covering wars, humanitarian crisis and natural disasters, including genocide in Rwanda, tsunami in Japan, earthquake in Haiti, revolution in Egypt, and civil war in Syria, Pakistan and Iran. In Canada, she produced immersive, thought-provoking reports, including an in-depth look into the impoverished community members of Centre-Sud neighbourhood in Montreal.
Ouimet has won many awards, including the Judith-Jasmin award for her career as a journalist and the Michener award for her investigation into the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was also anointed chevalière of the Ordre national du Québec in 2020.
You can read more about her career, and this year’s ceremony, here.
