Connie Walker honoured for work in journalism
- EFN Staff | May 05, 2017
A Cree woman from Okanese First Nation is one out of seven women who will be honoured in the 2017 YWCA Toronto Women of Distinction Awards. On May 18, Connie Walker who is Senior Reporter in the Investigative Unit at CBC News, will be receiving this award for her outstanding work and commitment to improving the lives of women and girls. Walker has accomplished a lot in her widely-recognized work.
Walker’s ground-breaking investigative journalism exposes system social injustices faced by Indigenous women and communities across Canada. In 2013, she had an essential role in launching CBC Indigenous, which brings extensive coverage on Indigenous issues in Canada.
Walker is a part of a multiple award-winning investigative team where their stories are featured on a website called Missing & Murdered: Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls. She also spearheaded a podcast that investigated the unsolved murder of Alberta Williams – an Indigenous woman from British Columbia who was killed 28 years ago.
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Walker had an important role in helping to produce a four-part documentary series called 8th Fire, which focused on Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous people and communities. With CBC, Walker worked in areas of CBC News Toronto, Connect with Mark Kelley, CBC News: Sunday and hosted a television show called Street Cents.
Walker graduated from the Indian Communication Arts (INCA) program from the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) in Regina – a program that introduces students to journalism. She first began her journalism career in grade 11 by writing an article in a school paper about the case of Pamela George – a young Indigenous woman who was killed by two non-Indigenous men 22 years ago.
In a FNUniv 40 Years of Indigenous Education profile, Walker said it took time for her passion of Indigenous storytelling reaching national attention.
“I’m at a point now where I can focus exclusively on Indigenous stories but for a long time,” said Walker in the online FNUniv profile. “I wasn’t doing that. I was doing a variety of other things and I’ve had so many different jobs at CBC. I’ve worked in news, current affairs, documentary, and lifestyle, news programming, investigative and digital.”
Ntawnis Piapot, an Indigenous freelance journalist, was first introduced to Walker’s work when she was a kid watching Street Cents and remembers feeling so much pride watching the only Indigenous woman on television. She says Walker influenced her as an Indigenous female journalist and that she is deserving of this award calling her one of the hardest working journalists in the industry.
“She’s done a really good job of representing our stories, our province and her home community Okanese with the hard-hitting, award-winning investigative journalism that she’s done in her career,” said Piapot who also worked at CBC.. “She’s one of the nicest humblest people…she shares her knowledge and congratulates other Indigenous journalists and encourages storytellers to be the best they can be.”
Walker has become a face of journalism expertise on covering Indigenous issues. She mentors budding reporters and emphasizes the importance of fair representation of Indigenous peoples in the media.
“For over 15 years [Walker’s] reporting identified critical issues faced by Indigenous communities and beyond,” according to the YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction profile on Walker. “As more Canadians learn the truth about the realities that Indigenous people face in Canada, the whole nation is benefitting from the results of her work.”