Impact

The IJB teaches investigative journalism disciplines by involving students as core journalists and contributors to major investigative projects, while undertaking projects in partnership with academic researchers, major media and teaching programs in Canada, the United States and globally. Throughout its three years, the IJB has generated truly breakthrough work in both journalism and education.

Recent highlights

Awards

In less than three years, the IJB’s journalism has been honoured with six prestigious national and international journalism awards and honours.

• Award juries for three major Canadian journalism prizes cited The Patient Files: Hidden Stories from Inside Ontario’s Hospitals in 2024 including the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism – our third nomination in four years for one of Canada’s top journalism prizes. The project was also a finalist for both the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards in the Data Journalism category.

• Our investigation into growing incidents of hate crimes was also nominated for a 2024 CJF Award. 

• We were awarded the 2023 CAJ Data Journalism Award for our series “Suspended.” The series was also nominated for a CJF Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism — the second IJB nomination for one of Canada’s top journalism prizes since our inception three years ago.
  
  
• Founding donor Gerry Gotfrit received an Arbor Award from the University of Toronto in recognition of his impactful support for the IJB. It was celebrated earlier this year at a gala event at the University of Toronto hosted by Dalla Lana dean Steini Brown to celebrate the IJB and its accomplishments at the Star.
  
  
• In 2022, the IJB was honoured with the The Data-Driven Reporting Project award, a prestigious U.S.-based prize honouring intrepid reporting that utilizes data and serves underrepresented communities. Only two Canadian outlets received the award — which came with a $100,000 USD prize. The prize money is being used to conduct a unique and extensive investigation into Ontario’s healthcare system.

Accomplishments

• After two years of painstaking work by our reporters, the IJB launched Ontario’s most comprehensive public repository of completed freedom of information (FOI) requests. It contains details from over 75,000 FOI requests made to 28 Ontario ministries and the Premier’s Office since 2014. Accessible on our website, this database provides key insights into government action on issues ranging from healthcare to the environment to the economy. With a simple keyword search, the public can now uncover previously hidden records and use that information to request detailed documents from the relevant ministry. This invaluable resource sheds light on the accessibility of public information, empowering greater transparency between our government systems and the public.

• For the past five years, we have been forensically monitoring and analyzing lead levels in drinking water at schools and daycares across Ontario. Our unprecedented analysis revealed that nearly half of the province’s public schools have recorded at least one instance of toxic lead in drinking water exceeding federal safety guidelines, potentially affecting over 800,000 students. In collaboration with the University of Toronto’s HIVE Lab, we developed an interactive database that allows Ontarians to access lead test results in schools and daycares from 2019 to 2023. This reporting has garnered significant political attention and sparked media coverage across the province. As a result, the issue has been raised at Queen’s Park, prompting calls for immediate action to ensure safe drinking water in schools and daycares throughout the province.

• Our series Suspended also had an impact at Queen’s Park. An MPP tabled a private member’s bill to reform Ontario’s system for suspending licences as a direct result of our investigation. One story in the series led NDP leader Marit Stiles to grill Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney during Question Period based on our reporting, which showed Mulroney’s office had intentionally withheld answers prepared by civil servants to questions we had asked.

• For the first time, we collaborated with a documentary production company to co-produce the documentary Bodies for Rent which aired on CBC in September 2024. Our groundbreaking work into Canada’s clinical trials industry uncovered a troubling practice— thousands of “professional guinea pigs” volunteer their bodies each year for money and perks that experts describe as exploitative and unethical. Financial incentives often lead participants to lie to qualify for studies, potentially compromising data that Health Canada relies on to approve drugs. 

• We have made a significant mark in the podcasting world through our groundbreaking series, The Ultimate Choice produced in partnership with TVO Today and the Toronto Star. Based on our in-depth reporting on medically assisted death (MAID), this powerful docuseries, follows the intimate journey of Michael and his wife, Ann, as they navigate Michael’s decision to pursue MAID due to an incurable illness. Hosted by IJB founder and director Rob Cribb, the podcast not only tells Michael’s story but also challenges Cribb to confront his own family history as he grapples with the emotional and ethical complexities of MAID. 

• We also partnered with TVO for the series, In Our Heads—a six-part podcast documentary exploring the youth mental health crisis. Based on our award-winning inaugural investigation with the Toronto Star, Generation Distress, the series takes a deep dive into the spiking crisis across Canada and the dangers of systemic gaps in the country’s response.

• In September, we welcomed our third CJF-IJB Black Investigative Journalism Fellow, Démar Grant. Grant joins the IJB for six months to work on our ongoing investigative projects under the guidance of the bureau’s editors and senior reporters. Our inaugural CJF-IJB Black Investigative Journalism Fellow, Wendy-Ann Clarke, has now joined us as a full-time reporter. 

• Fulfilling our mission to help develop the next generation of investigative journalists, we continue training early-career journalists in other ways. We’ve had  eight interns join us over the past year. Two of them joined us as Unifor summer interns from April to September. These internships, at $13,000, are among the highest paid in the country. Together, we’re building a legacy and quickly becoming a top-choice destination for the best young journalists in the country.

• The IJB and the U of T Faculty of Law just completed the third year of our one-of-a-kind media law externship. The year-long externship brings enterprising young law students under the guidance of IJB Director Robert Cribb, Toronto Star lawyer Justin Manoryk.
  

In addition to these organizational updates, the IJB continues to publish high-quality investigative journalism that is influencing policy, inspiring debate and informing the public. View our published projects here.