Postmedia’s Vaughn Palmer, Bruce MacKinnon share 2026 Michener-Baxter Award honours

Chronicle Herald editorial cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon, left, and Vancouver Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer, were co-recipients of the 2026 Michener-Baxter Award. Photo by MacKinnon: Tim Krochak/The Chronicle Herald; Palmer: Jason Payne/PNG

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Two Postmedia journalists with nearly a century of combined experience have been awarded one of Canada’s most prestigious journalism industry honours.

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B.C. political columnist Vaughn Palmer, a 53-year veteran of the Vancouver Sun, and Chronicle Herald editorial cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon, now in his 40th year with Halifax publication, were co-recipients of the 2026 Michener-Baxter Award for exceptional service to Canadian journalism.

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The annual award, presented by newly sworn-in Governor General Louise Arbour during a Thursday evening ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, “honours outstanding contributions to the cause of public interest journalism in Canada” by someone who dedicated their career to the field or served the industry in other ways.

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“This award is intended to celebrate a consistent body of achievement that produced positive impacts on the world of journalism and benefited Canadian society in general,” the Michener Awards Foundation website reads.

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Palmer first started with the Sun in the early 1970s — barely securing an intern position at the time, he reminisced on his 50th anniversary three years ago — and later became the paper’s first rock critic. After a journalism fellowship at California’s Stanford University, he was hired as the Sun’s political columnist in 1984 and has remained in that role ever since.

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In his acceptance speech on Thursday, he said B.C. Premier David Eby called to congratulate him and allegedly said it was “a great chance to retire on a high note.”

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“I told him: I’ll see you at the next scrum,” Palmer said, per the Sun.

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Indeed, in his bio on the Sun’s website, the now 74-year-old wrote that he considers himself fortunate to have enjoyed his “version of the freedom of the press” and has “no current plan to retire.”

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Through his four decades covering provincial politics in Victoria, Palmer, “armed with a pocket calculator and relentless curiosity, he developed a remarkable talent for transforming dense ministry reports into columns governments would rather leave unread,” the foundation wrote in a press release.

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“We didn’t have access to information in those days,” he said in 2023. “But if you brought out your pocket calculator and went through (the reports), you could show how they’d gone over budget on every single contract on the project.

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His reporting is credited with helping to expose overspending on the Coquihalla Highway and the subsequent public inquiry; more wasteful spending related to the Site C hydroelectric dam; and the province’s plagued fast ferries program.

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“His reporting and political columns remain essential reading for anyone seeking to understand public life and governance in British Columbia.”

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Palmer previously received the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award — named after his longtime Sun mentor — at the 2006 Websters Awards honouring B.C. journalism excellence.