Carol Off is a veteran CBC journalist and longtime radio host, including a decade and a half with CBC Radio’s flagship evening current affairs programme, As It Happens. 

“It’s been a wild and wonderful ride but it’s time for someone else to take AIH for a spin. After a decade and a half and—I estimate—25,000 interviews, I want to do something else,” said Off in February of 2022 as she prepared to leave As It Happens to work on other projects for the CBC and her work as a writer. “I have had so many great conversations on AIH. Some were difficult: Holding a politician’s feet to the fire; speaking with the woman who held Nathan Cirillo’s hand while he died; finding a doctor who is dodging bullets in Syria; talking with a man who spent years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Others were sweet and simple: a Scottish shepherd who found her lost lamb; a man who dug up a WW1 shell near his garden; a family that decided to return a million dollar lottery ticket; and even a woman who knits sweaters for her chickens.”

“Carol is one of the very best interviewers in the country. Full stop. Her journalism and journalistic excellence has received so many awards and honours that it would be impossible to list them all,’ said Susan Marjetti, General Manager of CBC News, Current Affairs and Local. 

Prior to taking the host chair at As It Happens in 2006, Off was an international correspondent for CBC covering the Middle East, the Balkans, Afghanistan, the United States, the former Soviet Union and many other places. She has also covered Canadian military missions around the world, including combat operations in Kandahar after 9/11. She was a news and politics reporter based in Ottawa and Montreal, and began her career on the Arts beat for CBC in the 1980s.

Off’s many honours include a Gemini; two gold medals from the New York Festival of Television; a Gabriel Award; ACTRA’s John Drainie Award for Distinguished Contribution to Canadian Broadcasting; and most recently a Silver medal for Best Radio Personality in 2021 from the New York Festivals Radio Awards. She is the author of four books, including most recently, All We Leave Behind: A Reporter’s Journey into the Lives of Others, winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction in 2018.

Off is chair of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression’s Gala Fundraiser and has volunteered with Journalists for Human Rights to help Afghan journalists escape from the Taliban.