Conclusion: Partnership, A Way Forward

After two successful Awards ceremonies with Her Excellency Julie Payette, president Alan Allnutt was confident that, despite some hiccups, the Foundation and Office of the Governor General were building bridges. He was looking forward to a big celebration for the fiftieth anniversary in the spring of 2020, including the launch of the revamped education fellowship.

With new governance policies, an engaged board and cordial relations with the Office of the Governor General, Allnutt turned his attention to fundraising. This problem has dogged the Micheners since its founding in 1970. “There was really a point probably early 2019 where I was like, oh my God, what are we going to do? We need to raise money,”¹ Allnutt recalled. Donor prospects were slim. He remembered how board members questioned his proposal to hire a professional fundraiser. They didn’t understand “why would we need it?” Allnutt, a corporate governance expert, understood the complexities behind successful fundraising. Gone were the days when a volunteer could knock on the door and leave with a multi-year pledge. Now, funders wanted accountability, measurable goals and an organization that had the support to follow through with new initiatives. The Michener Foundation did not have the people, the resources or the organizational heft.

Then, Fortuna, the goddess of fortune and luck, sailed onto the horizon. In the course of being interviewed for this book in June 2019, former governor general David Johnston raised the question of the organization’s future. “What’s your strategic plan for the next ten years?” he asked. “You have a precious institution that’s done important things for the country over the last fifty years. . . . And those fifty years have been a prologue of important distinction, but now we are where we are, and it’s a world that is vastly different from the one Roly [Michener] saw fifty years ago.”² Johnston challenged the Michener Awards Foundation to set out their ambitions for the next ten years, “Then you need goodwill and good people to do it, and then you obviously need to think of some funding.”

The conversation led Johnston to suggest a partnership between the Michener Awards Foundation (MAF) and the Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF). He founded the independent and non-political charitable organization in 2012, “to amplify the impact of the Office of the Governor General as a central institution of Canadian democracy, and to better serve Canadians through a range of initiatives linked to learning, leadership, giving and innovation.”³ Johnston could see the natural link between the two foundations and saw opportunities to build on the Michener Awards and fellowships. He also saw how a lack of funding and a volunteer board limited the Micheners. “I would love it if, with the help of the Rideau Hall Foundation and other Canadians, we could take the Michener Award and strengthen it.”⁴ It was an exciting prospect.

After I presented the idea to Alan Allnutt, “It just went click for me. It was like, wow, this is the way to go,” he said. “It was just like manna from heaven.”⁵ There were questions but no pushback when Allnutt raised it with the board of directors in the fall of 2019. They gave him the green light to begin negotiations. Absent was the hesitancy or suspicion surrounding past overtures from and discussions about the Canadian Journalism Foundation.

By December 2019, Allnutt had a draft partnership agreement for review. “It was a good and reasonable proposal to sustain activities of the MAF and professionalize them,”⁶ said director Ed Greenspon at the January 2020 board meeting. Director Paul MacNeill saw the partnership as an opportunity to elevate the Michener Award and get the recognition and profile it deserved as journalism’s most prestigious award. “It’s a win-win for both the Michener Award Foundation and the Rideau Hall Foundation,” he said.⁷ For Allnutt, who was stepping down as president at the January 2020 meeting, it “felt like, mission accomplished.”⁸ For others on the volunteer board, it was a burden lifted. This agreement would secure the future of the Awards and fellowships. Finally, there was a path developing that would allow the Foundation to contemplate growth.

Incoming president Pierre-Paul Noreau took over negotiations. Over the next ten months, with the help of a sub-committee, he worked out details with Teresa Marques, the president and CEO of the Rideau Hall Foundation. The Michener would keep its status as a charitable organization. Its board would continue to administer the Michener-Baxter special prize along with the independent adjudication of the awards and fellowships. The RHF would manage the Michener endowment and budget, and they would collaborate on fundraising, marketing, promotion and events.

On August 31, 2020, the Michener board approved a “two-year collaboration agreement” with the Rideau Hall Foundation. It was like getting engaged. The couple would commit, but the wedding would take place at a later date. Director Miller Ayre spoke for other directors when he said, “This is the best opportunity to grow into a solid foundation. Right now, the Michener Award Foundation has no institutionalized support and no day-to-day follow-through. This partnership with RHF is positive and what’s needed to strengthen the foundation.”⁹

It was only fitting that in its fiftieth year, the Michener Awards Foundation should, at long last, find a compatible partner. This agreement would transform the future of the Michener. It was no longer a group of former journalists, editors and publishers who ran things off the side of their desks in their spare time for free. The Rideau Hall Foundation had staff with expertise. The Micheners finally had the support it needed to tackle some of the issues raised back in 2017 — such as a remake of the website, presence on social media and new projects to expand the reach of journalism in the public interest.

The value of this nascent partnership was never more evident than when the pandemic hit in March 2020. COVID-19 scuttled the Michener Foundation’s plans for a big in-person fifty anniversary bash. The world shut down, and media organizations could barely keep up with the changing science as the virus mutated. There was social distancing, masking, lockdowns and quarantines. People got sick. Millions died. The world stayed home and went online.

The Foundation’s volunteer board was in no position to pivot and produce an online virtual awards ceremony. It was its budding association with the Rideau Hall Foundation that turned out to be a lifesaver. With the pandemic ranging, staff stepped in and started planning for a pre-recorded half-hour awards ceremony to be broadcast online in December.¹⁰

The big question for the Michener board was whether Her Excellency would participate. Julie Payette was once again in the media spotlight. In July 2020, CBC News started to roll out a series of news stories about an alleged toxic work environment at Rideau Hall. Former and current employees had told journalists Ashley Burke and Kristen Everson that they experienced persistent verbal abuse, bullying and workplace harassment, and some described Rideau Hall as “a house of horrors.”¹¹ Within two days of the first CBC news story, the Privy Council Office ordered an independent review and hired Ottawa-based Quintet Consulting Corporation. For its part, Payette’s office issued a news release affirming a strong belief “in the importance of a healthy workplace” and that “We deeply regret this reporting, which is in stark contrast to the reality of working in the OSGG.”¹² The harassment allegations appear to have come as a surprise to Payette, who claimed she received no complaints from the union during her tenure. “I cannot imagine that if there were some issues, that they wouldn’t have been breathing down our necks. . . . But we never heard.”¹³ That autumn, ninety-two people brought their complaints and comments to Quintet.

Despite the cloud over Payette, she put her best face forward for the Michener Awards fiftieth anniversary in December. In a red holiday dress, she smiled into the camera and praised journalists for their frontline work during this pandemic and for telling stories and keeping pace with the changing science. “Misinformation is everywhere, and we the public rely on you and on your vigilance to distinguish between the real and the not-so-real, through fact-checking and accuracy in reporting. This is what we celebrate today, by honouring news stories that have made a difference. All of them resulted in change for the better.”¹⁴

Payette concluded the virtual fiftieth anniversary broadcast by announcing the 2019 Michener Award winner — the Globe and Mail — for its investigation into the exploitation of newcomers. “False Promises,” a national investigation led by reporter Kathy Tomlinson, delved into the systematic exploitation of temporary workers and foreign students by corrupt immigration consultants and employers:

As his former assistant puts it, Kuldeep Bansal preyed upon the weak and “had them by the necks.”

Mr. Bansal is a Canadian immigration consultant and international recruiter known for speeding around suburban Vancouver in a Lamborghini. Over the past decade, his agency collected up to $5 million a year from thousands of people who wanted a permanent life in Canada.

Eager recruits would borrow and scrape together as much as $15,000 apiece for a chance at one of the “guaranteed” jobs Mr. Bansal advertised for his employer clients. In recent years, those clients included such major fast-food franchises as Subway and Fatburger, as well as Best Western hotels and Mac’s convenience stores, among others.

Many recruits made initial payments to Mr. Bansal overseas in Dubai or India, in cash, which his former assistant said he brought back to Canada in suitcases. Some waited months for job offers that never materialized. Others got to Canada but found the position they’d been promised didn’t exist.

Mr. Bansal kept their money anyway, and, in some cases, went after them for more. It has made him a wealthy man. Along with his family, he now has a golf course, a banquet hall and at least $15-million worth of real estate, according to public records.

“It makes you feel disgusted. Totally sick to the bottom of my belly what had happened and is still happening now,” Mr. Bansal’s former assistant, Arjun Chaudhary, said. “I was a part of it, to be honest.”

Mr. Bansal is among the more notorious of the thousands of job recruiters and consultants operating both in Canada and abroad. A four-month Globe and Mail investigation probed 45 such agents, who together have amassed scores of complaints, lawsuits and charges against them in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Québec. Along with employers and career colleges who paid them to help fill their job openings and classrooms, they collectively stand accused of exploiting at least 2,300 people in recent years, from countries such as India, the Philippines, Mexico and Guatemala, for their money, their labour or both.”¹⁵

The series prompted the federal government to introduce new open work visas allowing foreign workers facing abuse to switch employers, and it passed more stringent regulations for immigration consultants.”¹⁶ In her acceptance speech, Tomlinson emphasized change is “ultimately is the role of public-service journalism. . . . At its best, it not only reveals the truth, no matter how challenging, flawed or complex it might be, it goes further to spark the ideas and the conversations to correct it.”¹⁷ The broadcast was not the bash that the Foundation had hoped for. Still, the virtual ceremony and new partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation signalled exciting possibilities that awaited the Micheners.

A month after the ceremony, Julie Payette stepped down as Governor General on January 21, 2021, along with her secretary, Assunta Di Lorenzo. Their departure came just days before the release of the heavily redacted 132-page Quintet report that found “serious problems” that needed the PMO’s attention, “especially regarding toxic workplace behaviours.”¹⁸

Three months later, when the finalists for the 2020 Michener Award were announced, the CBC News series “Inside Rideau Hall” was on the list. The news release noted CBC’s investigation revealed “a toxic work environment, evidence of questionable spending, and a flawed government vetting process. . . . The CBC’s investigation was not just about being a public service, it was about basic workplace standards, transparency and accountability. In the end, it held to account those in the nation’s highest constitutional office.”¹⁹ This was what the Michener Awards was set up to do and the judges adjudicated without fear or favour.

The partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation now gave it access to new donors and opened up opportunities to share the best in Canada’s journalism with more people. It also allowed the Micheners to revive another idea to expand its public service role that had been around since its formation in 1970 — the development of a visiting journalist’s program. An attempt had been made in the 1980s when a panel of Michener finalists would meet with journalism students at Carleton University on the day of the awards, but it had not taken root. The idea was resurrected in 2017-18, but again, it went nowhere because there was no champion or administrative support to get it off the ground.

President Pierre-Paul Noreau — based in Québec City — was anxious to amplify the Michener values of public service in journalism in the rest of the country. His idea was to bring the stories and research of Michener laureates and fellows to journalism students in other locations. With Noreau as the champion, funding from the Power Corporation of Canada and the administrative and marketing know-how of the Rideau Hall Foundation, the Micheners hit the road in November 2022 under the banner “Positive Change for Public Good.”

The pilot project was at the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I had taught for twenty-four years. The timing was excellent. There was a lull in the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and the variant Omicron had yet to surface and run rampant.

Michener Award winner (2020) Kenneth Jackson of APTN and nominees from the previous two years, Gabrielle Duchaine and Caroline Touzin of La Presse, and Tim Bousquet of the Halifax Examiner,²⁰ were joined by the 2021 fellowship recipient, Ethan Cox of Ricochet Media.²¹ The day was devoted to panel discussions and workshops, schooling students in the role of journalism as a public service. It was an inspiring moment when Duchaine looked at the journalism students in the audience and said, “I see our jobs as walking around with a flashlight, looking for rocks in the darkest corner, lifting them and putting the light on them. I want to fight injustice.” Waving her hand in a circle, she said, to get change, “you have to write again and again and again and again and again on this same story and the same subject relentlessly.”²² Jackson agreed, “Change is going to be slow in terms of impact.”²³

They spoke about “living with the trauma of others,” and “scars, images” and their obsession to find the truth.²⁴ They left students with solid advice. “When you’re starting out it’s going to be very deadline driven, hard news, pyramid style. You’re going to be required to turn it around quickly because that’s how you learn. You learn how to develop sources, how to talk to people and how to write. You learn what the truth is. You find it, you see what is wrong,” Jackson said. “You look at us. We’re a bunch of unicorns who get to do investigative journalism. . . . You have to work your way there. It’s work, a lot of work.” Their presentation that day left an impact on the students.

For Michener president Pierre-Paul Noreau, that was just the beginning. Another panel discussion with Michener laureates was held at Laval University in November 2023. And the Foundation is looking at other ideas. “Dream, dream, dream. So that’s the beginning,”²⁵ Noreau said.

The fiftieth anniversary of the Michener Awards Foundation was golden. Despite the pandemic, the Foundation had found its footing. Since the first ceremony in 1971, the world of journalism has changed radically. In 1970, Michener’s world of journalism was slower, simpler and siloed. Had he been alive in 2023, Roly Michener would have marvelled at how media have become instantaneous, social and multi-platform to stay relevant in this new media ecology. He would have lamented the decline of in-depth journalism. He would be astounded to see the flood of information online with alternative facts presented as truth, journalists harassed and threatened, and information manipulated and suppressed. He’d be interested in how these organizations have responded. With so many demands and fewer resources, he might worry that the essential role of journalism in the public interest was threatened. And because of that, Michener would likely conclude that journalists need more support than ever before. The Michener Awards and the fellowships are his small but lasting contributions to the effort. They remain his legacy and stand the test of time.

Torstar’s former chair, the late John Honderich, saw the Michener Awards as “a metaphor for getting top-level work that has a social impact. It has achieved that kind of currency.”²⁶ And essential to that currency remains the impartial role of the governor general as expressed through the annual awards ceremony at Rideau Hall. “There is nothing more humbling than to be allowed into Rideau Hall to see the head of state who takes a personal interest and has a commitment to understand why journalism as a central part of democracy also represents the very best of what Canada represents,” said Globe and Mail editor-in-chief David Walmsley. “It’s a high watermark for us in the calendar. There’s nothing more important to us than getting into Rideau Hall. It’s so validating.”²⁷

Three factors have contributed to the stability of the Michener Award: the ongoing support of Rideau Hall and Her Excellency Mary Simon, the timely intervention of former governor general David Johnston and the subsequent partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation. The Michener Award Foundation has found new opportunities to expand its mission and serve as a beacon for journalism in the public interest for the next fifty years. “The Michener Foundation before the association with the Rideau Hall Foundation, and the Michener Foundation today — they’re two worlds,” said Noreau. “We have a lot of possibilities in front of us, and it’s a major change in the life of the Foundation. You know, before I wasn’t sure at all, but now I am comfortable to say that we will have another fifty years.”²⁸

If only media organizations could be as confident of their own future. Between 2001 and June 1, 2023, 474 local news operations have closed in 335 Canadian communities, reported the Local New Research Project at Toronto Metropolitan University. And the bad news keeps coming. In August 2023 Méteo Media closed twenty free and flyer publications in Québec, and in Ontario, Metroland announced that it would close most of its seventy regional papers. They are victims of declining advertisements and readers. Blame free online news, blame social media, blame COVID-19, blame bad management.

The wasting away of professional media outlets should raise alarm bells about the health of our communities, many of which are now news deserts. Community needs journalism to speak for those who are marginalized, to uncover corruption and abuses by those in authority, to draw our attention to what is not working in our society and to give examples of what success might look like. Fact-based journalism in the public interest helps us understand issues, make decisions and push governments to make changes. Without independent journalism, democracy is open to abuse of power, corruption, manipulation, propaganda and mis- and disinformation. The Michener Awards stands in opposition to that. So long as journalists are poking around, asking questions and holding those in power to account, sharing what they find out, and effecting change, the Michener Award will be there to honour and celebrate journalism organizations — in whatever form they take.