Carol Sanders

Legislature reporter

A Free Press reporter since 2000, Carol carved out a niche in Winnipeg media getting to know immigrants and refugees, the people helping them resettle and how the system works – or doesn’t, and sharing stories of the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home.

In 2014, she was a finalist for the Canadian Association of Journalists human rights reporting award for her coverage of the usually closed-door Immigration and Refugee Board process. In 2015, she won Amnesty International Canada’s media award for her coverage of the world’s largest refugee camp and the people there waiting to come to Winnipeg.

She’s broken news to the world about the perilous journeys of asylum seekers – from the Somali man who nearly drowned in the Red River trying to swim into Canada in 2015 to the Ghanaians who nearly froze to death walking over the border on Christmas Eve, 2016.

After 20 years of reporting on the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home, Carol moved to the legislature bureau in early 2020. She arrived just in time to report on how the provincial government handles the biggest health and financial crisis it has ever faced: the global pandemic.

The province is facing challenges similar to the many resettled refugees she’s interviewed over the years, but on a massive scale: In a life or death crisis, how do you respond? What risks are you willing to take? The plans and choices the government makes will have lasting consequences – possibly for generations.