Omar Sachedina

Omar Sachedina is the Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor of CTV National News, covering significant breaking news stories unfolding across the country and around the world.

Sachedina first joined CTV National News as a correspondent in Toronto in 2009, and moved to the Ottawa News Bureau in 2013 before assuming his role as National Affairs Correspondent in 2019.

During his tenure in CTV’s Parliamentary Bureau, Sachedina filed frequent reports from Parliament Hill and the National Capital Region, and travelled with the Prime Minister to cover international summits and conferences. He also served as a fill-in host on CTV News Channel’s daily marquee political program POWER PLAY. Part of CTV News' 2015, 2019, and 2021 Federal Election team, Sachedina reported from the campaign trail from coast-to-coast-to-coast and interviewed federal party leaders.

Sachedina has been on the ground for many international news stories, including multiple assignments in Ukraine during the war; reporting from the Colombia-Venezuela border on Venezuela’s political power struggle between Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido; the network’s Canadian Screen Award-winning coverage of D-Day’s 75^th Anniversary in Normandy, France; and the Pro-Democracy Protest in Hong Kong.

For his outstanding coverage, Sachedina has been recognized with multiple nominations for Best National News Reporter at the Canadian Screen Awards, and was part of the CTV News team that captured the 2020 RTDNA Canada Ron Laidlaw Award for continuing coverage of Canada's opioid crisis. Sachedina was also recognized by the Canadian Association of Journalists with a nomination for a Daily Excellence award for his coverage of the 2018 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami.

Sachedina also delivers regular features and exclusive interviews across CTV News platforms. In 2022, Sachedina and cameraman David Brunet were recognized with an RTDNA award for their feature on Her Excellency Governor General Mary Simon’s roots in Kangiqsualujjuaq and Kuujjuaq (Nunavik), where she attended residential day school.

In 2022, he conducted the first English-language exclusive interview with Justice Mahmud Jamal, the first person of colour to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. In an hour-long feature for CTV's W5, Sachedina travelled to the heart of the fabled Northwest Passage in 2017 aboard a former Canadian ice breaker vessel.

Sachedina was part of the CTV News team covering the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where he interviewed Governor General David Johnston, and delivered a piece on a Canadian teacher who set up a music school in a favela. For this story, Sachedina and his cameraman and editor, Marc d'Amours, were honoured with an Edward R. Murrow Award by the RTDNA.

Sachedina’s breaking news assignments have included the November 2017 church massacre in Texas and the January 2017 mosque shooting in Québec City. He also covered the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the Boston Marathon Bombings, and the mass murder of 77 people at a youth camp in Norway.

Previously, he served as a reporter and anchor at CP24, Toronto’s source for breaking news.

Born in Vancouver to parents of Indian descent from Uganda, Sachedina travelled to Uganda in 2005 to produce an online documentary while on a PBS Frontline Fellowship. 

Sachedina was the recipient of the 2010 RTNDA Canada President’s Fellowship. He has a degree in Political Science from McGill University, a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University, and is a graduate of The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

He speaks French, Gujarati, and Kutchi. He enjoys travelling, music, and sampling food from around the world.

Follow him on Twitter @omarsachedina and Instagram @osachedina