The Big Winner this year was HuffPost Canada (Quebec) with 7 Gold and 2 Silver out distancing second place, IT World Canada by 4 medals who had 4 gold and 1 silver. Third place this year was York University in the Academic category with 4 Gold. York also won Gold for Best of Canada for Best Publication, which was a first for the COPAs by a school entry.

Marty Seto presents Gold for Best Video to Annie Martineau from Tabloïd

One of the mandates of the COPAs is to foster the dialogue between schools and the publishing industry and this year one of the judges (Pepper Parr, Burlington Gazette) decided to pick up a story entry, written by Akshay Kulkarni who attends UBC, that happened to win Gold. Article Link. 

 
Another goal of the COPAs is to be inclusive to the whole media industry and the introduction of a FREE entry opportunity in the COVID category that provided the proverbial long shot in winning a COPA award. This year two long shots emerged as part of the cream of the crop of this year’s entries from the COVID category. First, was PressProgress that won Gold for Best Independent Publisher and Silver for Best Content of the Year that was won by HuffPost Canada. Article LInk Cabin Radio from the NWT, who came in a very close second to Press Progress in the COVID Category was able to grab silver for Independent Publisher of the Year. Article Link

The HuffPost Canada COVID Team Photo Virtual Version

There was a multi-cultural diversity of this year’s COPA winners that had English, French, Chinese and new this year Native tribal communities (IndigNews (gold and Silver) and Nuu-chah-nuith Tribal Council (Silver). Elle Canada Quebec (two gold,) Tabloïd (gold, silver), Fête Chinoise (two gold ) and Xtra magazine a gender magazine won a silver were the other notable medal winners.

The winners were scattered across Canada with Western Canada with 25%, Central (Ontario) with 55% and Eastern (Quebec and Maritimes) with 20% of the 94 winners. A podcast entry from Alberta, Cross-polliNation, won a Best of Canada Gold for for Best Digital Solution, they beat out another podcast from the CBC and VG for the honurs. The Cross-polliNation podcast team is part of creative hub of podcasters called the Alberta Podcast network.

You can visit the COPA winners page here to check out some great Canadian Content