On Friday, Globe and Mail journalist Carrie Tait and four of her colleagues received a National Newspaper Award for their work exposing dodgy health-care contracts tied to Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government.
Ms. Tait, who works out of the newspaper’s Alberta bureau in Calgary, and reporters Alanna Smith, Tom Cardoso, Mark MacKinnon, and Stephanie Chambers have kept the scandal on the front burner for months, for which they deserve the thanks of Albertans and have felt the seething wrath of the UCP, which is desperate to make voters forget about the goings on they have uncovered.
In a move that must have really stuck in the craw of Premier Danielle Smith and her closest advisors, the NNA judges also named Ms. Tait Journalist of the Year “for her tenacious, ongoing coverage of Alberta’s politically charged health care controversy amid a climate of intimidation and threats.”
Remember, while the newspaper industry may not be quite what it used to be, the NNAs are still prestigious awards for Canadian journalists, bestowing justified additional credibility on the Globe’s series of significant scoops that the UCP would really like to pass off, Trump style, as a witch hunt.
And given what Ms. Tait in particular had to put up with to get the stories, the judges’ description is really rather mild. “Throughout 2025, Tait was subjected to a sustained campaign of intimidation designed to silence her work,” the NNA judges wrote in a special section on the Journalist of the Year Award. “This included a high‑profile lawsuit launched by the premier’s former chief of staff, as well as stalking, surveillance, and harassment.”
“Tait did not retreat,” the NNA said in its press release Friday. “She continued to report with discipline, precision, and restraint, navigating personal risk with a professionalism that has inspired colleagues across the profession.”
This is fair and accurate, although it is worth remembering that the Smith Government and its sympathizers and operatives, identified and otherwise, have had more success similarly intimidating journalists in Alberta, including commercial news organizations that could have pushed back and independent journalists without the deep pockets and legal resources of The Globe and Mail.
For that reason, I would say that the metaphorical jury remains out on another statement by the NNA judges. To wit, that Ms. Tait’s reporting “altered the province’s political landscape, triggering real consequences and forcing accountability at the highest levels of government.”
We’ll see about that. Unfortunately, it’s well within the realm of possibility that there will be no consequences at all for the UCP.
Indeed, until the NNA announcement Friday, the harassment campaign on social media waged last summer against Ms. Tait by a person or persons as yet unidentified but obviously in support of the UCP had largely faded from the public’s memory.
Surreptitiously taken photos of Ms. Tait talking to two former government staffers were published on an anonymous social media account ginned up to look like an unrelated account that had broken significant stories about the UCP government, and scathing comments poured in from UCP supporters infuriated by the reporter’s coverage of the allegations made in a lawsuit by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos.
The whole thing looked and sounded very much like a coordinated and well-organized campaign. In its July 21 report on the harassment, the Globe said the posts included details of events Ms. Tait had attended, a prescription she’d picked up at a pharmacy, and a threat to “start exposing Carrie Tait’s sources.”
About the same time, someone also “disguised a phone number to look like Ms. Tait’s phone number” and made numerous calls.
Soon after, Premier Smith said, “No one should be harassing anybody, and I don’t comment on sock puppet accounts. I have no idea who’s behind it.”
Earlier this month, Ms. Tait was insulted from the floor of the Alberta Legislature by Government House Leader Joseph Schow, who was complaining about members of the Opposition NDP relying on her news stories during Question Period.
“Listen, Mr. Speaker, I will take Carrie Tait’s writings as seriously as I take dietary advice from Jabba the Hutt,” huffed Mr. Schow, who is also the UCP minister of jobs and stuff, in an example of what apparently passes for high wit in UCP circles.
