Christina Leadlay
Christina Leadlay is an engagement editor and columnist at The Hill Times who covers education within the wider frame of federal politics and public institutions. Her work tracks how people, appointments and events on Parliament Hill shape the conditions in which education and other public services are governed. She brings a long editorial tenure and a focus on the Hill community to stories that link policy files to the individuals and organizations behind them.
Heard on the Hill
Leadlay’s Heard on the Hill column is a front-of-paper feature built around short, tightly reported items on parliamentary life.
In this format she follows the travel and outreach of party leaders, such as a U.S. swing by the Conservative leader, alongside other Hill happenings. She reports on conferences and summits that draw MPs and policy thinkers together, including events hosted by institutes and clubs that sit close to the policy process. The column also highlights the routines and milestones of institutions themselves, such as special tours marking an anniversary for the Library of Parliament.
Across these pieces, education sits alongside culture, health, and economic files as part of a single picture of how Parliament spends its time and attention.
People and power around Parliament
A recurring thread in Leadlay’s coverage is the movement of people into roles that carry real influence over policy and operations.
She writes about new senior advisers joining ministers’ teams and deputy chiefs being named, giving a clear view of who is gaining responsibility within key portfolios, including emerging technology and other complex files. Her stories on secretaries of state adding directors and staff track how offices are built out to deliver on government agendas.
She also pays attention to the internal leadership of the press gallery, reporting on figures such as a newly acclaimed president and the dynamics of its annual general meeting. This focus on people moves provides context for education and other sectors by mapping the networks that will later make decisions on legislation, funding and oversight.
Policy files and institutional oversight
Beyond personnel, Leadlay covers substantive policy reviews and institutional plans as they come before Parliament. Her reporting on the House gearing up for another assisted dying review follows how MPs prepare to revisit sensitive social policy, including the processes and timelines that structure such debates.
She has written about a new health minister reflecting on a career that spans international assignments and domestic roles, tying personal experience to the management of a major social portfolio.
In pieces on broadcasting, she has covered a minister’s plan for the public broadcaster, setting out key elements of that strategy and its political context. Her work on critical minerals frames resource policy as dependent on the people and institutions charged with delivery, reinforcing a theme that runs through her coverage of other sectors.
For a reader following education, this pattern shows how she treats schooling and research policy as part of a broader ecosystem of social and economic files.
Long tenure and editorial approach
Leadlay’s reporting is informed by a long career within Hill Times Publishing, where she has held multiple editorial roles since first joining in 2004. She has worked as an associate editor, co-edited a parliamentary briefing product, contributed to a health-focused publication, and overseen an annual directory that catalogues Ottawa’s political and policy community. From 2014 to 2023, she was managing editor of the New Edinburgh News, a volunteer-run community newspaper, strengthening her experience in local civic coverage and production. In her current role, she combines engagement duties and copy editing with regular column writing, which keeps her close to both the newsroom’s workflows and the Hill’s day-to-day rhythms. The result is coverage that is concise, structured around verified appointments and events, and rooted in an institutional memory that helps situate new developments in education and other policy areas within longer-running stories.
4 more education journalists.
Abby Russchen
Abby Russchen ties education, community institutions and individual stories together, showing how policies and decisions register in people’s lives. She reports for CBC on education and community life, working across text, video and photography for different CBC platforms. Her education coverage centres student achievement, provincial and national test results, classroom technology and the forces shaping learning conditions, connecting policy language and expert analysis to observable changes in performance. She treats AI, screens and digital tools as part of the education beat, focusing on their impact on student well-being. She also reports on community institutions and local services, from bank closures and changing city status to small-business growth. Her human-interest features follow people, public memory and recognition, and her long-form background supports detailed, fact-grounded narratives across formats.
Alexa Phillips
Alexa Phillips reports on education as a financial system, tracing who pays, who benefits and who bears the risk when policy changes reshape schools and universities. She covers education policy, funding and regulation for The i Paper, with a consistent focus on money, power and their impact on students and staff. Her reporting follows fees, budgets and reform into classrooms and lecture halls, using concrete figures to show how tax changes, funding mechanisms and loan reforms translate into course cuts, job losses and access. Phillips brings wider experience on public services and regulation, including work on gambling oversight and healthcare access, so education sits in a larger accountability story. She writes straightforward, reported news pieces that combine policy detail, financial data and case studies, built from official records and regular call‑outs to readers affected by the systems she covers.
Alexandra Holyk
Alexandra Holyk is a multi-skilled journalist at CTV News who reports on education and youth issues through the daily lives of students, families, and local communities. She covers school and campus decisions, student safety, youth behaviour, and neighbourhood incidents, with a focus on how they affect the people directly involved. Her work includes stories on graduation choices, concerns about Black students in a school board, federal research funding at the University of Waterloo, and students who helped after a cyclist collision. She also covers vandalism and other local disruptions around schools and neighbourhoods. Holyk pitches, researches, shoots, writes, edits, and presents stories for broadcast and digital platforms. Her previous work includes video journalism for provincial coverage, along with reporting for campus and regional outlets and major Canadian newspapers and business media.
Annabelle Olivier
Annabelle Olivier ties system-level themes in Quebec’s school system to the immediate realities of parents and students, treating education as a lived experience rather than an abstract policy field. She is a digital journalist with CBC News, covering education and related public policy. Her work spans data breaches and digital privacy in schools, institutional conflicts and labour disputes that disrupt study plans, education on the campaign trail, and school infrastructure and land use. She reports on incidents like mass emails exposing sensitive parent data, suspended classes that leave students feeling like bargaining chips, and proposals to turn racetracks into schools. Her background in digital production at another major Canadian broadcaster shapes an online-first reporting style, grounded in specific incidents, clear descriptions, and detailed, verifiable facts drawn from documents, statements and interviews.