Beverly Thomson was a household name for her work in TV broadcasting. Her 30-year career kick started at Global News. She went on to a prosperous career at CTV, hosting the Canada AM show. In her career she covered the Olympics, President Barack Obama’s inauguration and interviewed high-profile people in every field.
In September 2025, at 61, Thomson died of breast cancer. She was first diagnosed in 2002 and later became a spokesperson for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.
Thomson had her first journalism job at a radio station, located under a strip mall in Newmarket, Ont., after graduating from Seneca College’s Radio and Television Broadcasting program in 1987. She was a reporter at Global and got thrown behind the desk nine minutes before going to air after the anchor called in. Never anchoring before, she went live and got through the full hour error free. This would be the first of many newscasts behind the desk for Thomson.
In her career, she interviewed influential people, like President Donald Trump, Jane Fonda and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to name a few. In 2014 she interviewed former First Lady Hillary Clinton, the only Canadian to so for that press tour. Interviewers were asking if she was running for president, a question Clinton was avoiding. She decided to re-frame the question to ask, “Why would you run for president?” A question Clinton responded to, saying, “That’s a great way to ask it because most people ask it the other way,” before answering the question in detail.
Thomson had a gift at connecting with the people she interviewed, but she also personally connected with her co-workers. Leslie Roberts is an example of this, quickly becoming friends from co-anchoring.
“(Beverly) had seen me do a live hit … she basically asked the bosses in Toronto, ‘Who is this guy?’ Because they were looking for a co-anchor at the time. She was solo, and then she said, ‘Let’s give him a try,’” he says. “We had chemistry from the outset. And it’s interesting, because here’s a woman who was solo, had tremendous success at the anchor desk, but she was willing to share the spotlight.”
She won a lifetime achievement award from the RTDNA in 2024 after she was named a member of the Order of Canada for her outstanding contributions to Canada’s broadcasting industry and volunteer work in 2019. Thomson received the Humanitarian Award from the Gemini Awards, now known as the Canadian Screen Awards, in 2006.
“I’d like to think that she also saw herself as a trailblazer in journalism that paved the way for other … journalists, regardless of their gender, to assume their position on the anchor desk,”
– Leslie Roberts
Thomson was beautiful on the inside and out, but her internal beauty is what made her shine. She knew how to have fun and lead her life with kindness, Roberts says. “We’re in a business where not everybody’s kind, and there’s lots of competition. But Bev put kindness first, and you would see that,” he says.
As grief poured in on social media, many friends and colleagues remarked on Thomson’s gratitude, fun-side and her heart, saying she not only made them a better reporter, but a better person. Some mentioned how much her kids meant to her, talking about her son and daughter daily. In her time away from work, she enjoyed going to Jays games and spending time with her family.
“We had a chance to do an interview with Celine Dion at her peak … she was coming to Toronto and she and I were fighting over who was going to get the interview … and I say fighting, not in the true sense of the term, because we were both big fans. And we (were) like, who knows her music better? So, we had kind of like a sing-off where I would sing some lyrics and then she would sing some lyrics,” Roberts says. Thomson inevitably was the one to interview Dion.
Roberts was the one to tell Global News viewers about Thomson’s breast cancer diagnosis.
“She told me in the boss’s office. There was myself, Paul Rogers and Bev, that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer (for) the first time and she had to leave. And she asked me to make the announcement on her behalf to our viewers,” he says. “She (gave) me the responsibility to share the news with the viewers, and I think that shows you the trust that she had in our partnership.”
In a 2015 Ted Talk, Thomson displayed her humbleness by playing a highlight reel of clips of her breaking on air, after discussing the ups and downs of her career. She leaves a legacy that highlights her passion for reporting.
In that talk, she said the three pillars that she followed throughout her journalism career were patience, perseverance, and passion.