Daniel Renaud (centre), winner of the 2025 CMLA Freedom of Expression Award. CMLA President Danielle Stone (left) and former Christian Leblanc (far left), along with past president Patrick Bourbeau (right) and board member from Quebec Marc-Andre Nadon (far right) presented the award on November 7, 2025 in Halifax.
The CMLA Freedom of Expression Award is awarded every year to a person who has promoted and protected freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Canada. This year, the 2025 award has been given to Daniel Renaud, journalist and advocate for court transparency.
In particular, the award acknowledges his promotion and protection of freedom of expression in Canada, particularly for his unwavering commitment to covering organized crime in Québec, even after learning that a bounty had been placed on his head.
Daniel was instrumental in breaking the Québec journalists spying scandal which eventually led to the adoption of the Journalistic Sources Protection Act.
Daniel has been at the forefront of court transparency advocacy throughout his career. Most notably, it was his desire to cover the preliminary motions in the Silva case which led to the Supreme Court of Canada case of the same name relating to the scope of publication bans under section 648 of the Criminal Code.
** If you have a nominee for 2026, please send the Nomination form to cmlahelp@gmail.com**
PAST WINNERS
2024 – Jennifer Stairs: For her work as Communications Director between Nova Scotia courts and the media.
2023 – Morrell Andrews: For her work to extend the expressive freedom of sexual assault complainants.
2022 – Bert Bruser: For an exemplary legal career representing journalists and mentoring the next group of media lawyers.
2019 – Linda Hughes: For her support and participation in challenging legislation that unjustifiably infringed on free speech.
2018 – Patrick Bourbeau and Senator Claude Carignan: for their work towards the successful and historic enactment of the Journalistic Sources Protection Act (Bill S‐231).