Meghan Grant
Meghan Grant is a justice affairs reporter at the CBC who focuses on courts, crime and police accountability in southern Alberta, a beat she has covered for more than a decade. Her reporting stands out for staying with serious cases from charges through sentencing and appeals, explaining what each step means for victims, accused people and public institutions. She combines detailed courtroom observation with clear, plain summaries of complex legal decisions.
Court documents, victim impact statements and judges’ reasons appear prominently in her coverage, giving a sense of how decisions are made rather than only the outcome. Alongside that hard news reporting, she takes on occasional feature stories about people whose work inside public institutions has shaped their communities, such as a longtime computer science professor who helped bring the internet to a major university.
Courtroom coverage of murder, sexual assault and dangerous driving
Grant devotes much of her work to serious violent crime, often writing from sentencing hearings where families and survivors speak directly to the court. In a piece on a dangerous driving case, she reports how those close to the victim describe him as a “hero” family man, then explains the sentence and the judge’s reasoning.
Her coverage of murder trials and sentencings brings forward the voices of children and relatives of those killed, alongside the legal arguments about intent, evidence and appropriate punishment.
When she writes about sexual assault cases, including aggravated assaults that leave survivors with life‑altering injuries, she sets out the agreed facts, the medical and personal impact on the victim and the length of prison terms imposed. Across these stories she tracks themes of accountability and harm, showing how individual cases fit into broader questions about sentencing ranges and public safety.
Police accountability, officer conduct and use of force
Grant’s beat includes sustained reporting on police behavior, internal investigations and criminal charges against officers. She covers the decision to send a murder case involving a police officer to trial, outlining the allegations, the standard the Crown must meet and what a trial will examine.
In coverage of historic domestic incidents involving elected officials, she shows how police responses years earlier intersect with current questions about public trust and political accountability.
Her stories often return to how complaints are handled, what oversight bodies or courts conclude and how those findings are communicated to the community. The emphasis is on process and outcomes: what was alleged, what was tested in court or investigation and what findings were reached.
Legal battles in politics, protest and public institutions
Grant regularly reports on court cases that sit at the intersection of law and politics, such as appeals by men convicted in connection with the Coutts border blockade. She tracks rulings on petitions brought by separatist groups, explaining what each court decision means for processes like signature counting and referendums.
Her work on a case involving a city councillor’s past domestic incident shows how legal records become part of broader debates about political accountability.
Grant also connects criminal law to the governance of sports and other institutions, including stories on fraud and theft charges laid and later withdrawn against a former Cricket Canada official. In coverage of a major securities case, she reports how a man who previously defrauded investors of $12.5 million drew a fresh warning from the securities commission, highlighting regulatory tools available when criminal charges are not in play.
Financial crime, extradition and complex investigations
Beyond violent crime, Grant follows complex financial and transnational cases, often focusing on how investigations and court processes unfold over time. Her reporting on an extradition matter tied to a major drug case explains the bail outcome, the allegations at issue and the steps involved when another country seeks to have an accused person sent abroad. She uses similar detail in stories about investment fraud, setting out how schemes operated, the scale of losses and the warnings issued to protect potential future victims.
Rights, health and end‑of‑life decisions
Grant’s justice coverage extends into health‑related legal disputes, including a case where a young adult sought medical assistance in dying over her father’s objections.
In that story she explains the injunction brought by family, the judge’s ruling and the legal framework that governs access to MAID, showing how courts navigate intensely personal conflicts. Across these more sensitive topics she maintains a restrained tone, focusing on legal criteria, factual timelines and the words of judges rather than opinion or rhetoric.
Taken together, Grant’s body of work shows a reporter who treats the justice system as a central public institution, using detailed case coverage to illuminate how law, politics, policing and personal lives intersect. Stories range from homicide and sexual assault trials to political protests, securities enforcement and end‑of‑life decisions, but the through‑line is careful, process‑driven reporting grounded in the courtroom.
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.