Guy Lepage – Rena Bowen Volunteer of the Year 2025
Emergency Management Volunteer and Communications Delegate, Canadian Red Cross
Journalism – Print and Broadcasting, 1978
In June 2025, Guy Lepage was deployed by the Canadian Red Cross to assist wildfire evacuees in Manitoba. “The evacuation has been described as one of the province’s most severe emergencies in recent memory,” he posted on social media. He travelled between Winnipeg, The Pas, and Flin Flon and helped hundreds of people. Once the evacuation orders were lifted, Lepage went back home to Ajax, just east of Toronto.
A few weeks later, the wildfires in Manitoba spread with renewed ferocity, and Lepage was on the go again. “Proud to be heading back to Winnipeg to continue assisting Manitobans forced from their homes by wildfires,” he shared in a later post. “This relief operation is massive! And the province is under its second state of emergency [this summer]. I continue to be proud to wear the Red Vest!”
Lepage, a retired journalist and public servant, feels fortunate that his life has led him to the Canadian Red Cross. In 1978, he graduated from Journalism at Algonquin College and found work at the Ottawa Citizen. He paid his dues as a copy boy before being promoted, first to bureau chief in nearby Renfrew County, then to West Quebec bureau chief. A few years later, he made the switch from print to broadcasting and secured a position at CJOH TV (now CTV Ottawa), where he worked as a reporter, producer, and news anchor. By his mid-20s, Lepage had a successful career in television and was deeply in love with the woman he would soon marry, Jane Gilbert. Life was great.
But, as history shows, the advent of the Internet in the 1990s would disrupt traditional journalism. Lepage, who had moved to Toronto in 1992 to work at CKCO TV (now CTV Kitchener) as Queen’s Bureau Chief and then Global TV as National Bureau Chief, saw the writing on the wall and mapped his exit strategy.
Guy Lepage supports the wildfire relief operations in Manitoba in the summer of 2025. Source: Guy Lepage.
After a stint at CBC Newsworld (now CBC News Network) and CTV National News, he pivoted his career to public service and became an issues analyst for Ontario’s provincial government. He served in this capacity under three premiers—Dalton McGuinty, Kathleen Wynne, and Doug Ford—using his skills as a veteran journalist to produce daily briefs that advised the premiers on the top stories in the news cycle.
Lepage’s decades of experience reporting the news and advising politicians gave him a front seat to the issues affecting people. He felt privileged. The more aware he became about the difficulties others faced, the more he wanted to help. When the Canadian Red Cross came to Queen’s Park in 2005 looking for volunteers, he put his hand up without a second thought. He got a day’s worth of training and left for Biloxi, Mississippi, to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. Three weeks later, he was back home, energized. He had found his passion.
Lepage is now a seasoned volunteer for the Canadian Red Cross. Since that first deployment in 2005, he has taken part in dozens of deployments across Canada and around the world. He has deployed to disasters in seven Canadian provinces, two other hurricanes in the United States, a 2010 mission to Haiti after a catastrophic earthquake claimed thousands of lives and damaged much of the country’s infrastructure, and a 2022 posting to Eastern Europe—six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—where he participated in the war relief operation.
When Lepage is not away on deployment, he is busy with the Personal Disaster Assistance Team (PDAT) in his community. As the manager of Durham Region’s PDAT, he coordinates the efforts of dozens of volunteers to support people who have just lost their homes to fires. These volunteers arrive on the scene shortly after first responders and offer people food, clothing, and temporary lodging. “We also comfort and advise people,” he said. “We tell them what to say to their service providers. We remind them to call their family and friends to let them know they’re OK. And if they need to cry, we’ll be there for them, too.”
Lepage’s volunteer work has been recognized by prestigious awards. In 2021, he received the Order of the Red Cross, the highest honour the Red Cross gives to volunteers and staff members. Three years later, he received the King Charles III Coronation Medal in recognition of his significant contributions to his community and exceptional service and dedication.
“Imagine that: a francophone from Vanier being recognized by the King,” he said. “Naturally, I don’t do what I do for accolades. No one in the Red Cross does. We all love helping people. I love the warm and fuzzies I get when I serve others. But when I got the call about the coronation medal, I cried. I thought about my dear wife Jane—who is British—and her unwavering support over all these years, and I cried. I couldn’t have done any of it without the support of my family. And I have no intention of slowing down. My wife and I hope to keep giving back to the community as long as we can.”
Read Guy Lepage’s “On Being Canadian: Bringing Out the Best in Our Worst Moments” (Policy Magazine, August 28, 2025).
Discover more 2025 Alumni of Distinction award recipients.