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Jessica McDiarmid

Reporter Toronto
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About Jessica McDiarmid

Jessica McDiarmid is Canada's National Observer's climate reporter leading our coverage of the Greater Toronto Area.

Jessica is a prominent Canadian journalist and has worked across Canada, West Africa and North America.

Her first book, Highway of Tears, was published in 2019 by Doubleday (Canada) and Atria (US).

She has written for the Associated Press, the Toronto Star, the Canadian Press, Harvard Review Online, Maisonneueve, and Canadian Business, among other publications.

AWARDS & OTHER ACTIVITIES

  • Finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize and the BC/Yukon Book Prizes’ Hubert Evans Award for non-fiction, and winner of the Jeanne Clarke Memorial Publication Award, for Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019)

  • Writer-in-residence for University of King’s College MFA program, 2020

  • Speaker at numerous events, including Society of Environmental Journalists conferences in 2014 and 2015, the Toronto International Festival of Authors in 2020, UBC’s Green College lecture series and America Walks webinar in 2021; host and moderator for Toronto Public Library.

  • Named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 by This magazine in July 2011 for coverage of civil war in Ivory Coast

  • Honourable mention in Atlantic Journalism Awards’ Student Awards for Excellence in Journalism, 2007

Jessica graduated from University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Master of Fine Arts in narrative non-fiction.

32 Articles

Ford government's climate policies cost taxpayers more than $10 billion: report

Ontario’s “extremely worrisome” recent track record on climate has cost the province nearly $10.5 billion in lost revenues, legal fees and compensation for cancelled contracts, according to a new report.
News, Politics | May 19th 2022

Doug Ford says he wants '100%' clean energy — but how?

Premier Doug Ford said Monday he wants Ontario's energy grid to be "100 per cent" clean. Emissions are expected to triple in the next eight years as his government phases in natural gas plants.
News, Politics | May 17th 2022

Ontario election campaign kicks off

News | May 4th 2022

Enviro groups call on Ontario parties to make new highways in Greenbelt illegal

A coalition of Ontario environmental groups is calling on provincial parties vying for power in the upcoming election to make it illegal to pave over the Greenbelt.
News | May 3rd 2022

Ontario Liberals promise $1 transit fares until 2024 as electioneering intensifies

In an echo of Premier Doug Ford’s (unfulfilled) “buck-a-beer” election promise four years ago, the Ontario Liberals are promising a buck-a-ride.
News | May 2nd 2022

Ontario's Peel Region votes to expand urban footprint

Peel Region will expand its urban boundaries to accommodate expected population growth, bucking a trend of nearby municipalities that have defied the provincial government’s push for sprawl.
News | April 29th 2022

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s budget scant on plans for climate, environment

Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised to sink more than $25 billion into building highways over the next 10 years as the Progressive Conservative government tabled its budget Thursday.
News | April 28th 2022

Are ‘climate’ and ‘environment’ dirty words in Doug Ford’s Ontario?

Ontario’s budget is perhaps most notable for what isn’t contained within its 268 pages.
News | April 28th 2022

Residents, local governments protest Ontario's heavy hand pushing through ‘vertical dormitory suburbs’

Condo highrises reaching skyward 80 storeys. Forty thousand new homes. Eighty-eight thousand more people. All in the space of about 45 hectares in Richmond Hill and Markham.
News | April 28th 2022

On the hook for cleanup costs, Ontario landowners blame province for leaking oil, gas wells

“Come for a coffee, we’ll have it inside,” Norfolk County resident Paula Jongerden says with a laugh. But she’s not joking. She lives about 300 metres from an old oil well that routinely belches foul-smelling odours.
News | April 20th 2022
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