Joyce Napier, Ambassador of Canada to the Holy See

Biography

Joyce Napier is a former political journalist and foreign correspondent. She reported in both official languages in Canada and abroad for more than 40 years, covering some of the most important news events of the modern era.

She began her career as a print journalist in Montreal in 1981 and retired in 2023 as parliamentary bureau chief for CTV National Television News. In between, she worked for The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, La Presse, CBC Television and Radio-Canada. For Radio-Canada, she was the Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem, and the Washington bureau chief. She is the only person to have ever served as a bureau chief for both an English- and a French-language Canadian news network.

Over the course of her career, she covered the elections of Canadian prime ministers and American presidents, the Quebec sovereignty referendum, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seismic political events in the Middle East, a millennial papal pilgrimage, the 2008 worldwide subprime meltdown, post-9/11 prisoner tribunals in Guantánamo Bay, the devastation of the École Polytechnique massacre, the wreckage of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, an earthquake in Chile and the exodus of Iraqi refugees to Syria. In 2008, Napier stood across from a stage in Chicago’s Grant Park, reporting live as Barack Obama accepted the presidency of the United States.

Her career highlights also include reporting from Rome on the death and subsequent beatification of Pope John Paul II. She was in the crowd at St. Peter’s Basilica when a puff of smoke announced the deliberations of the conclave that elected Pope Benedict. Napier has covered Indigenous issues, and her breadth of experience in Canada and around the world positions her to advocate for critical issues, including reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples and confronting the damaging legacy of the residential school system.

Born in Montréal to Egyptian immigrants, Napier moved to Europe with her family as a toddler and was raised in Rome before returning to Canada as a young woman for undergraduate studies in journalism.

She speaks French, English and Italian fluently, Spanish capably and some Arabic. She has been married for 34 years. She and her husband have 3 grown children.