Advocacy

OTTAWA, Dec. 21, 2022/ CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) is pleased to release the findings of its second annual national Canadian Newsroom Diversity Survey.  The CAJ collected data on 5,012 journalists from 242 newsrooms across radio, television, digital and print media in Canada. This is up from 3,873 journalists at 209 newsrooms in the inaugural 2021 survey results. The CAJ worked with data and analytics experts at Qlik to develop an interactive website to visualize the results.  This year's survey represents the most comprehensive data set on the gender and racial breakdown of Canadian newsrooms. It marks [...]

Update to this story: https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/judge-denies-saskatchewan-request-for-publication-ban-during-saulteaux-sisters-bail-hearing/ REGINA, November 23, 2022/ CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) calls on the Government of Saskatchewan, and the province’s minister of justice and attorney general, to withdraw its unnecessary application for a sweeping publication ban that would prevent journalists from reporting on the upcoming bail hearing for a pair of Saulteaux sisters in a possible wrongful conviction case. Sisters Nerissa and Odelia Quewezance are scheduled to appear for a bail hearing in Yorkton, Sask. court on Nov. 24-25. Their case has drawn considerable attention in recent months after the Department of Justice’s Criminal [...]

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) is renewing its support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in his fight to avoid extradition to the U.S. on Espionage Act charges. The CAJ joins numerous other journalism and human rights organizations in calling on Britain to drop its efforts to extradite him, and on the U.S. to abandon the charges. Assange faces up to 175 years in jail for publishing classified documents from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The documents were picked up by many news organizations around the world to reveal abuses by the U.S. and other governments. Canadian journalists and news [...]

UPDATE: Please see PDF for response from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Sept. 1, 2022 The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A2 Delivered by email Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, We are writing in relation to the increasing and alarming online hate and harassment targeting journalists and journalism as a profession. This is a global problem, which threatens not only the safety and well-being of journalists, but the proper functioning of democracy itself. Many countries are now working on plans to fight back. We are calling on Canadian police and policymakers to do [...]

WINNIPEG, MB, August 12, 2022 /CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists is disturbed by new information about a neo-Nazi plot to kill a Winnipeg Free Press journalist, and calls on the RCMP to clarify what information it had obtained from U.S. police and what steps it took to investigate the murder plot. In 2019, Ryan Thorpe went undercover to expose Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews as a member of neo-Nazi group The Base. Mathews subsequently fled to the U.S., where he was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison for weapons charges and plotting violence. This week, [...]

Dear Interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell and Toronto Police Chief James Ramer, With copies to: David Lametti, Minister of Justice Marco Mendicino, Minister of Public Safety Pablo Rodriquez, Minister of Canadian Heritage Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth Brenda Lucki, Commissioner of the RCMP Doug Downey, Attorney General of Ontario We are writing in relation to several police reports filed in Ottawa and Toronto by journalists or columnists for the Toronto Star, The Hill Times and Global News over an incident of online abuse naming a contributor associated with each of these organizations. For the [...]

July 11, 2022- The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) is pleased to announce that 199 media outlets have committed to participating in the 2022 Canadian Newsroom Diversity Survey, a landmark annual snapshot of the country’s media demographics. The survey measures the race and gender of journalists working in newsrooms nationwide. Last year, the CAJ collected data on 3,873 journalists working at 209 media outlets. So far this year, 143 media outlets have completed the survey ahead of the Friday, July 29 deadline, and another 56 news organizations have committed to providing data on the composition of their newsrooms. “Media outlets [...]

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) will be offering free membership for a period of up to three years to any Afghan journalist who left Afghanistan after May 1, 2021 and settled in Canada.  The CAJ has spoken up in the past about Canada’s obligation to support Afghan journalists, many of whom have risked their personal safety to help Canadian reporters bear witness and report safely during the Afghan conflict. We continue to work with several industry partners to urge the federal government to fulfill its promises and to do everything in its power to provide safe passage to those [...]

For its persistent efforts to impede the free flow of information to the public, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the law enforcement category. The Mounties received an unprecedented double-citation from this year’s jury. The first citation was bestowed on the RCMP for their efforts to impede journalists from covering public opposition to the logging of an old-growth forest at Fairy Creek, on Vancouver Island. In particular, the jury took note of the RCMP’s efforts to obstruct journalists' access to [...]