Investigative journalist Stevie Cameron dies at home in Toronto, age 80

An investigative journalist who authored books that tackled topics ranging from a prime minister’s involvement in jet purchases to the murders of women on a British Columbia pig farm has died.

Stevie Cameron died Saturday at home in Toronto from Parkinson’s, her daughter Amy Cameron said, noting her mother also had dementia.

She was 80.

Among Cameron’s best-known works is an investigation she did into then-prime minister Brian Mulroney’s involvement in the purchase of new Airbus jets.

Cameron was accused of being an informant for the RCMP when they launched their own investigation — a characterization which was later called into question and which she strongly denied.

Amy Cameron said her mother believed in speaking truth to power but power sometimes fought back, and the accusation that she was a police informant was particularly hard.

“It was an incredibly difficult position for her to be in because how do you defend yourself when you’ve spent a lifetime trying to keep yourself out of the story? And she truly was not a part of the story and yet had been painted in that way,” Cameron said in an interview Sunday.

“She knew that when people reacted in that way and when power reacted that way, that she had touched a nerve and she felt, on balance, that it was important to tell that story.”

Cameron’s credentials also include two books on serial killer Robert Pickton, a stint as host of CBC’s “The Fifth Estate” in the early 1990s, and working as a contributing editor of Maclean’s, from 1993 to 2001, among other things.

She was also a co-founder of Out of the Cold, a volunteer program at St. Andrew’s Church in Toronto, that provides food and clothing to the homeless.

Cameron was recognized for that volunteer work, as well as her journalism, when she was awarded the Order of Canada in 2012.

“Stevie Cameron is one of Canada’s foremost investigative journalists and a committed volunteer. For decades, her award-winning books and investigative reports have exposed wrongdoing and uncovered buried truths,” a bio of her on the Governor General’s website notes.

Born in Belleville, Ont., Cameron’s career in journalism began as a food, travel and lifestyles reporter for newspapers in Toronto and Ottawa in the 1970s. Her resume lists a certificate from Le Cordon Bleu academy in Paris from the early 1970s.

But she had an interest in crime and politics, her daughter said, and she began writing in those areas after pitching ideas to an editor.

Author and journalist Jan Wong, who remembered Cameron inviting Wong, her husband and her mother-in-law to Christmas dinner when she was new to Toronto in the 1980s, said Cameron’s experience as a chef and lifestyles reporter led to some big stories.

“She had gotten many of her scoops in Ottawa about politicians because she knew all the decorators and designers and the food people,” Wong recalled.

Wong said when Cameron was accused of collaborating with the RCMP, she depleted her own savings to pay for a lawyer and fellow journalists held a fundraiser to help her out.

“It’s a huge loss for Canadian journalism because she was one of the most skilled investigative reporters,” Wong said of Cameron’s death.

Amy Cameron said she remembers her mother being meticulous with making sure she had the evidence to back up the claims in her work, adding she did her best to keep the families of the people she was writing about out of the story.

“She didn’t want to harm unnecessarily or dig into the lives of people who hadn’t chosen to live a public life or who hadn’t caused harm towards other people,” she said.

Cameron is survived by two daughters, and her husband David Cameron.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2024.

Rob Drinkwater, The Canadian Press