Reporter recognized for article chronicling city of Montreal’s attempts to take plots of land away from owners without paying them
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Montreal Gazette journalist Linda Gyulai has been nominated as a finalist in the 2021 awards program of the Canadian Association of Journalists.
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The CAJ awards gala, which “recognizes the best in Canadian journalism with a particular focus on investigative work,” will be held in Montreal on May 28.
Gyulai was nominated in the written news category for her story “A ‘monumental scam’ to take grandma’s land.” The article, one of a series Gyulai wrote on the topic, chronicled the city of Montreal’s attempts to take plots of land owned by several landowners in a vacant field in Pointe-aux-Trembles away for free. The site of the plots sits next to land that had been earmarked for the construction of the future REM de l’Est light rail line, as well as a possible station.
The nominated article outlined the battle of family members of Françoise Allard, who had been sent a letter by a civil servant from the city telling her to renounce her rights to the land. The city ended up buying the 2,607 square meter property for $62,568. Allard died in January 2021 at the age of 90.