Leah Hendry
Leah Hendry reports on how policy, systems and economics shape people’s lives, with a focus on health, social issues and the cost of everyday living. She works across TV, radio and online for CBC, covering stories that sit at the intersection of public services, consumer pressures and long-term accountability.
Health care under financial and access pressure
Hendry’s recent work often examines how rising costs and strained public programs affect access to health care. She reports on stories such as Quebecers overwhelmed by inflation and travel expenses who rely on charitable flight programs to reach medical treatments, showing how funding decisions and policy gaps translate into missed care and financial stress for patients and families. In these pieces, she traces the chain from government support and tax credits through to on-the-ground demand, making clear which groups fall through the cracks.
Her coverage of national plans and benefits similarly looks at who qualifies, who is excluded and how the rules work in practice. She does not treat health only as a medical issue, but as a combined economic and social challenge, explaining how coverage criteria, indirect costs and bureaucratic decisions shape outcomes for people who are sick, low-income or living far from major centres. This gives her health reporting a distinctive business and systems lens, grounded in the real budgets and trade-offs people face.
Social issues, inequity and historical harm
Beyond immediate health access, Hendry spends significant time on social issues and historical harms that still shape communities. She contributes to long-form and interactive coverage of topics such as the legacy of internment and the traces left in material culture, connecting individual artifacts and carvings to wider stories of dispossession and memory. In profiles of families and communities, she uses detailed reporting to show how past policies and institutions continue to affect people today.
Her investigations have also probed abuse and misconduct within religious and institutional settings, following how patterns in one region connect to a broader legacy across the country. These stories combine survivor accounts, archival work and institutional records to answer specific questions about responsibility and oversight. Hendry’s reporting in this area stands out for its careful reconstruction of timelines and its attention to how systems failed to protect vulnerable people, rather than focusing only on individual wrongdoing.
Systems, justice and accountability reporting
Hendry frequently explores how public systems function, and where they lag. In broadcast segments on cold cases, she breaks down why advances in DNA technology are solving more files in some jurisdictions than others, comparing investigative approaches, resources and legal frameworks between provinces. She explains technical tools in plain language and then ties them back to questions of justice, closure and institutional performance.
Her investigative work for CBC Montreal looks at vacant buildings, safety risks and fire trends, again connecting data analysis with policy and enforcement. Across these pieces, she focuses less on isolated incidents and more on structural factors: how regulations are applied, how agencies share information, and why certain problems persist despite repeated warnings. This systems focus is a consistent thread in her coverage and gives her stories relevance beyond a single case or event.
Consumer rules, pricing and the cost of living
Hendry also reports on consumer-facing policies and how they affect the cost of everyday experiences. In her coverage of Quebec’s move to tighten rules around reselling tickets, she examines new regulatory measures and enforcement powers while pointing out that these changes do not address the underlying drivers of soaring prices. She looks at how market dynamics, demand and platform practices interact with legislation to determine what people actually pay for live events.
Her work connected to CBC’s Cost of Living focuses on the financial side of daily life, from inflation and household budgets to seasonal spending and consumer behaviour. In this area, she is interested in both policy and practice: how rules around pricing, benefits and protections work, and how people adapt when those rules do not keep pace with economic reality. This gives her business coverage a concrete, lived-in quality rooted in the choices and compromises ordinary consumers make.
Cross-platform investigative and feature storytelling
Hendry is described by CBC as an investigative reporter with CBC in Montreal, specializing in health and social issues. She works across TV, radio and online, contributing to daily news, enterprise features and special projects. Her background includes reporting for CBC’s English services in Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, which informs her ability to place local stories in a wider national context.
Across formats, her distinguishing trait is a focus on systems and consequences: she follows how policies, prices and institutional decisions filter down to individual lives, whether through access to care, exposure to abuse, unequal justice or the affordability of everyday experiences. For stories that touch health care, social services, justice systems or consumer costs, she brings a blend of investigative rigour and clear, accessible explanation.
4 more business journalists.
Aarjavee Raaj
Aarjavee Raaj focuses on how corporate decisions, government warnings and economic trends affect everyday Canadians, using clear, data-driven business and related news coverage. She is a CTVNews.ca journalist with experience reporting on arts, culture, business and more, and her name is pronounced Aar-Za-Vee. Her work links institutional and corporate developments to practical consequences for workers, consumers and families, including corporate losses, retail restructuring, tax schemes and compliance warnings. She reports on workplace trends, economic strain, consumer recalls and health impacts, using survey data, charity reports, regulatory notices and clinical stories to show how macroeconomic and policy issues touch daily life. A digital journalist, she keeps to tight headlines, clear summaries of official statements or data, and a steady focus on what developments mean for people who work, shop and rely on public services.
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams reports human interest stories that follow how sudden conflict, loss and long-running mysteries reshape the lives of ordinary people in everyday settings. She is a writer-reporter on PEOPLE’s Human Interest team, a role she has held since joining the brand in June 2021. Her work centers on routine days that turn into major events, giving equal weight to what happened and the human cost. She covers minor disputes and errands that end in tragedy, sudden accidents, law enforcement and public safety incidents, and missing-person cases with new developments after years of uncertainty. Her reporting is concise, event-led and built around individual lives, often framed with clear emotional cues while staying grounded in verified facts. Business and workplace contexts appear as backdrops, but the person and their circle remain at the heart of the story.
Akshay Kulkarni
Akshay Kulkarni is a data-led reporter who explains how economic, policy and social forces play out in British Columbia through concrete numbers, records and local case histories. He has worked as a journalist at CBC British Columbia since 2021, focusing on business, labour and resource developments, including tariffs, trade rules, corporate strategies and regulatory decisions. His coverage of critical minerals, Amazon’s impact on jobs and wages, and responsible investment links market shifts to the lived experience of workers, consumers and small businesses. He also reports on infrastructure, energy and land use, such as the Site C project and high-value property disputes, and on policy and social systems, including Indigenous deaths in custody, social media use in harm reduction, and mandatory inquests. His stories are built around original interviews and quantitative detail that show how systems affect communities on the ground.
Allison Stephen
Allison Stephen stands out for connecting everyday life with money, work, and the built environment through vivid local examples instead of abstract business coverage. She is a staff writer at Daily Hive, where she covers how jobs, housing, major projects, and consumer experiences shape economic reality on the ground. Housing and real estate are central to her work, including detailed, accessible stories on distinctive homes, high-end rentals, and monthly shifts in home prices and cost of living. She regularly covers employment, especially public-sector and institutional hiring, highlighting well-paid roles and urging readers to act on new opportunities. Her reporting on major civic and recreational projects explains what is being built, how much it costs, and where it stands in approvals. She also writes about local businesses, food, and attractions, using concrete numbers, specific locations, and direct calls to action.