Leo Cruzat
Leo Cruzat is a reporter and video journalist at CityNews Edmonton who focuses on health and public affairs stories where systems, research and everyday lives intersect. His coverage centres on concrete incidents and emerging evidence, such as lung damage from vaping and e‑cigarettes and fatal delays in emergency care, to show how risks translate into real outcomes for patients and families. He uses field reporting, interviews and straightforward explanations to keep attention on the people affected while still making room for the policy and science behind each story.
Health system failures and emergency care
Cruzat’s most distinct work on the health beat examines how gaps in emergency services lead directly to harm.
In a detailed report on an Edmonton woman’s death after waiting 85 minutes for an ambulance, he traces the timeline from the initial call to the eventual response and shows how the delay triggered calls for a stronger emergency system. The story is built around the consequences of that single case while capturing the wider push for accountability and structural fixes, including demands from political opposition figures and advocates. His focus on response times, system capacity and patient outcomes marks a consistent approach: he treats emergency care as an operational system whose failures are measurable and deeply personal.
He extends that lens to coverage of 911 service outages across Canada, treating a short-lived technical problem as a health and safety risk that needs clear explanation. In that video report, he lays out what went wrong, who was affected and how authorities moved to restore service, matching technical detail with practical implications for people who rely on emergency calls.
Across these pieces, he returns to a core question - whether emergency infrastructure works at the moment people most need it - and uses individual incidents to probe systemic reliability.
Vaping, lung risk and young adults
Cruzat’s reporting on vaping and e‑cigarettes reflects a close engagement with current medical research and its implications for public health messaging. In his coverage of a University of Alberta study, he highlights findings that early signs of lung and cardiovascular impairment in young adult e‑cigarette users are almost on par with those seen in smokers, challenging the idea of vaping as a safer alternative. The underlying research shows reduced blood flow to the lungs, impaired exercise tolerance and early cardiopulmonary dysfunction in otherwise healthy young users, and his story translates these clinical details into clear risk language for a general audience.
He anchors the piece in the experiences of young adults who vape regularly, using their age and health status to underscore how quickly damage can appear, well before traditional smoking-related disease would typically emerge. By pairing study data with accessible framing, he positions vaping as a health system concern rather than just a lifestyle choice, pointing to future burdens on respiratory and cardiovascular care.
This combination of evidence-based reporting and concrete risk communication characterises his health coverage and differentiates it from routine lifestyle or trend pieces on the same topic.
Firefighters, collisions and public safety
Cruzat frequently reports on incidents involving firefighters and collisions, treating them as public safety stories with clear health consequences. In his coverage of a collision southeast of Edmonton that killed a volunteer firefighter and his son, he documents both the circumstances of the crash and the community’s response, using the loss to examine the risks faced by first responders and their families. The piece draws on local mourning and official statements to show how a single road incident reverberates through the emergency services community and the broader public.
Related video coverage of the same case emphasises the human side of the tragedy, with visuals and interviews reinforcing the emotional and social cost of unsafe conditions on the roads.
His work also includes stories honouring firefighters on the anniversary of 9/11, connecting commemorative events with contemporary awareness of occupational risk and sacrifice.
In these segments he reports on ceremonies and memorials, but his framing keeps the focus on current firefighters and the ongoing demands of their work rather than purely historical reflection. When large public events face severe weather, such as the Edmonton Heritage Festival preparing for storms, he reports on how organisers and emergency personnel plan for crowd safety, reinforcing his interest in how public health and safety are managed in real time.
Taken together, these stories show a persistent attention to first responders, collision risks and event preparedness as part of a broader health and safety landscape.
Infrastructure, regulation and community programs
Beyond narrowly defined health topics, Cruzat regularly covers infrastructure, regulation and community initiatives that shape conditions for wellbeing. His reporting on provincial pressure to cancel Edmonton bike lane projects situates transport policy within debates over safety, mobility and local governance, showing how decisions about infrastructure affect how people move through the city. In a separate piece on proposed rules for electric dirt bikes, he explains how government regulation responds to new technologies and their safety implications, again linking policy detail with everyday behaviour.
These stories reflect a consistent interest in how rules, funding and design choices influence risk and access, even when the subject is not framed explicitly as health care.
He also covers community-based programs and larger economic and political stories, such as a federal boxing initiative aimed at steering youth away from crime and a Canada Investment Summit seeking massive capital commitments. In the youth boxing report, he focuses on the program’s practical structure and its role in crime prevention, connecting physical activity and mentorship with public safety outcomes. In segments on national economic and political issues, including scrutiny of a U.S. Treasury Secretary over the state of the American economy, he maintains a straightforward, explanatory style that fits with his broader preference for clear, unembellished reporting on systems that affect people’s lives.
Across beats, his work is marked by a steady interest in public services, science and technology, and the way they intersect with everyday health and safety.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.