Biography
Paula Simons is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. She is also a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
Appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2018, Senator Simons has been a CBC radio producer and documentary maker, a playwright, and a popular historian. She spent 23 years as a reporter and political columnist with the Edmonton Journal, winning two National Newspaper Awards, one for investigative journalism and one for column-writing. She earned a further six National Newspaper Award citations of merit for her columns and editorials on Alberta politics and culture.
Her journalism has also been recognized with awards from the UNESCO Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom, Journalists for Human Rights, the Alberta Centre for Civil Liberties Research, the Canadian Bar Association, the American Society for Features Journalism and the Edmonton Historical Board.
In 2021, Senator Simons was nominated for her first National Magazine Award, for her regular column, On Second Thought, which appears in Alberta Views magazine. She is also the host of her own political podcast, Alberta Unbound.
Born and raised in Edmonton, Senator Simons holds a B.A. (Hon) from the University of Alberta, and a Master’s degree from Stanford University.