Kevin Weedmark
Kevin Weedmark is a Canadian-born journalist. He is editor of the World-Spectator, a community newspaper based in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, and of Plain and Valley, a regional publication covering southeast Saskatchewan and southwest Manitoba. While based in rural Saskatchewan, he has reported from Afghanistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. He is known for his work on international development and human rights.
He twice won the Canadian International Development Agency's Award for Excellence in Writing on International Co-operation. These awards led to CIDA-sponsored trips to report on development projects in the Philippines and Vietnam. In 2004, the World-Spectator and the Canadian International Development Agency embarked on a special project through which Weedmark spent six weeks in Afghanistan. His award-winning stories and photos from Afghanistan can be seen at www.world-spectator.com He has presented a PowerPoint presentation on Afghanistan to dozens of groups since the trip.
His interest in human rights developed early. He twice won the Media Human Rights Award presented by the League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith Canada. This was an open award for all print media in Canada. One of the awards was presented for “Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Hatred,” which examined the relationship between the right to free speech and laws against hate speech in Canada. The other was for an investigation into the history of the Ku Klux Klan in Saskatchewan, a little-known episode in the province's history until Weedmark's article. He has been guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Association for Human Rights, and was invited to speak on the Media and Human Rights at a special conference held to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In 2010, his investigative reporting on the Sun Country Health Region led to the resignation of Sun Country vice-president of finance Hal Schmidt after the World-Spectator reported that Schmidt had been fired from a previous job as CEO of IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia for falsely claiming to have earned his Chartered Accountant Designation, and that Schmidt had borrowed $75,000 in public funds from St. Mary's Health Centre in New Westminster, B.C. and failed to repay the loan. Based on Weedmark's reporting, the provincial health ministry investigated hiring practices in the Sun Country Health Region, and CEO Cal Tant was fired by the board the day it received the report.
Weedmark is president of Weedmark Communications Ltd. and McKay Publications Ltd., secretary of the Moosomin Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Moosomin Housing Authority board of directors, and a member of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.