She returned to Canada in the winter of 1988 and secured a position as a part-time weekend copy editor at the Alberta Report, then as a producer for CBC Radio in Toronto and Edmonton from 1989 to 1995.
Her investigative work on Indigenous child welfare and government cover-ups of the deaths of children in foster care also earned her recognition from the UNESCO Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom, and from Journalists for Human Rights.
Simons was part of two Edmonton Journal “breaking news” teams that won National Newspaper Awards for their coverage of the Fort McMurray wildfire and for their stories on the murder of four RCMP officers at Rochfort Bridge, Alberta.
While their Alberta coverage was deemed to have "reported quite fairly during the election", Post Media was strongly criticized by Simons and many of her fellow journalists (and some of the public) for presenting the Journal as a neutral, local source without partisan bias when in fact they were facing pressure to advocate for one specific candidate.
Instead of being appointed on merit, all too often senators get the gig because they're political cronies or party loyalists, bagmen (and women) who have primarily distinguished themselves as rabid partisans or backroom boys, not deep thinkers.