George Elliott Clarke is a prolific and celebrated poet, novelist and playwright, whose focus is exploring—through scholarly inquiry and creative arts-- the history, art, and culture of African-Canadians, especially those hailing from the 'Black Atlantic' Canadian provinces. 

Clarke was born on February 12, 1960 near Three Mile Plains, a Black Loyalist community, and grew up in Halifax. He is a seventh-generation Canadian of African American and Mi'kmaq Amerindian descent.

“The day I became incontrovertibly, irremediably a poet was February 12, 1977, my 17th birthday, when my mother and I drove to Three Mile Plains on a sunny, frigid, snowy morning …

Joyce Wieland was a groundbreaking artist and cultural activist who used diverse media to explore feminism and Canadian identity.

Jane Lind, in her book Joyce Wieland Artist on Fire, quotes Joyce’s 1955 diary writing about the male-dominated culture. “Why for God’s sake cannot we girls be brought up to be humans instead of dependent wretches.” …

Hugh Garner was an author, editor, journalist, teacher, and reviewer whose focus was on working-class Ontario. 

He was born on February 22, 1913, in Batley, Yorkshire, England. He came to Canada in 1919 with his parents, and was raised in Toronto where he attended Danforth Technical High School.

“Garner's poor, urban and Protestant background was a rare one for a Canadian writer and pervades his work …

Kent Monkman is an interdisciplinary visual artist who fulfilled his responsibility to paint the real history of his people under colonialism.

A member of ocêkwi sîpiy (Fisher River Cree Nation) in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba), he lives and works in New York City and Toronto.

In Kate Brown’s Artnet article, How Kent Monkman Is Reclaiming History: ‘We’ve Always Been Here, and We Will Always Be Here’, …

Stompin’ Tom Connors was a renowned folksinger, an ardent nationalist and spokesperson for ordinary Canadians.

In the 1995 CBC The National interview with Laurie Brown he says, “That’s what I’m trying to do for Canadians. I’m trying to uplift my country…I’m trying to make the young people realize we have something to sing about.”

Many Canadians know …

Bobby Sands was an Irish republican fighter and member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died at the hands of the British colonial occupying forces on May 5, 1981, in the H-blocks of the Maze (formerly Long Kesh) prison in the north of Ireland, after 66 days on hunger strike, fighting for his right to be treated as a political prisoner. 

In 1972, on the back of hunger strikes by republican fighters, that right had already been won, but was reneged on by the British in 1976.

Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Fein, said in a 2010 interview with the Hudson Union Society, “In 1976 the British government embarked on a process of …

Emily Carr was an acclaimed Canadian painter and writer – her own person.

She went against her upbringing and the society around her by following her want and need to paint, especially the First Nations people of Canada’s West Coast.

Born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1871, the year British Columbia joined Canada, Emily Carr was the second youngest of nine children born to English parents Richard and Emily Carr. 

The Carr children were raised in an English tradition. Her father believed it was sensible to live on Vancouver Island, a colony of Great Britain, where …

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, the great Soviet filmmaker, was born in Riga on January 10, 1898. He was a film director, teacher, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist best known for his film Battleship Potemkin.

On October 17, 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in Russia and overthrew …

Taras Shevchenko, the national bard of Ukraine, is a founder of modern Ukrainian literature and language. A champion of people’s freedom, with his poetry, he played a leading role in the formation of the Ukrainian national identity and consciousness. Political and revolutionary, his poems which …

James Baldwin was an acclaimed writer and political activist who participated in the movement for African American rights, fought against the war in Vietnam and spoke out against the persecution of homosexuals.

Born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, he was a writer who gave the …

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and lyricist and is considered the national poet of Scotland. Celebrated worldwide, he is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language and is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. 

In his autobiographical letter to John Moore, Burns described his recognition…

Pep Guardiola is a football (soccer) manager of Manchester City Football Club, the current champions of the Premier League in England.

He is a man of principle, practices a human-centered method, has social consciousness, and raises the level of the beautiful game.     

Josep Guardiola Sala is Catalan and was …

Chief Dan George was one of Canada’s best known and highly regarded actors and writers.

One of his most noteworthy contributions was a spoken-word poem he wrote and read at the Centennial celebration in Vancouver on July 1, 1967, entitled A Lament for Confederation. In this piece, Chief Dan George decried the treatment of First Nations peoples since

Marie Dressler was a famous Canadian actress and union organizer. She was born in Cobourg, Ontario on November 9, 1868.

She spent many years learning her profession acting in touring theatre companies all across Canada and the United States eventually working in Broadway plays and musicals.

Marie was cast alongside …

John Grierson, considered the father of the documentary film, was the first Commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada and wrote the bill that went before Parliament creating the then National Film Commission in 1939.

The Tallest Tree in Our Forest is a 1977 documentary film directed and written by Gil Noble, about singer, actor and activist, Paul Robeson. The biography was shot on 16mm film and is comprised of interviews, film footage and photographs.

The film, in chronological order, shows how Robeson attended Rutgers University on a scholarship where he was a College All American in football, the …

‘Brecht was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. He was also a director, poet, intellectual, politically committed to the cause of liberating the world from the exploitation of man by man …

The Porter is a CBC and BET+ original television series now airing on CBC and Gem consisting of 8 one-hour episodes. Produced by Winnipeg-based Inferno Pictures and Sienna Films the show is described by CBC as, ‘…the largest Black-led production in the history of Canadian Television.’

A number of issues are facing actors at this time as the current economic crisis weighs in on the film and TV industry.

On October 19, the talent agency Compass Artist Management Inc. told its actors that it was no longer viable and that it was ceasing operations with immediate effect. Current and former Compass clients say the agency did not pay them for their acting work, which they did between January and September this year. They are owed more than $230,000 in total.

Two California-based companies have been selected by the City of Toronto to develop and operate a new $250 million film, television and digital media hub along Toronto’s waterfront.