Stoney Creek news editor Stephen Beecroft accepts the 1996 Citation of Merit from Governor General Roméo LeBlanc.
The Ontario newspaper was recognized for a series of articles, published over a period of four years, on the establishment of a garbage dump near the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, an environmentally-fragile area long a battleground between developers and their opponents. The reports exposed an abuse of process by the municipal government which rezoned the site for waste disposal without proper public notice and held secret talks to negotiate royalties while publicly maintaining it opposed the project.
The Citation was presented during the Michener Foundation award ceremony at Rideau Hall on May 1, 1997.
The Michener Award for meritorious public journalism, sponsored by the Michener Awards Foundation, was launched in 1970 under the auspices of the late Roland Michener, then governor general. The award is for outstanding and disinterested public service in journalism. It is presented annually to a news organization – newspapers, broadcasting stations and networks, news agencies and periodicals are eligible – rather than an individual.