Conferences and Events

Known foremost as an actor, Paul Gross is also a writer, producer, director and singer. He is internationally known for his role as Constable Benton Fraser on the multi award-winning drama series Due South. He received two Gemini Awards for Best Actor and one Gemini Award for his writing on the series. 

He has been involved with a number of film and television projects including Men with Brooms, Gunless, Cra$h & Burn, H2O, The Trojan Horse and Slings & Arrows. In 2008, he released his feature film Passchendaele, a First World War epic. He wrote and directed the screenplay, and starred in the leading role as Michael Dunne, a character based on his own grandfather. Passchendaele was the highest grossing Canadian film of 2008 and won five Genie Awards, including Best Picture.

Paul is the Honorary Chair of the National Screen Institute and a spokesperson for Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. In 2009, he received the National Arts Centre Award and the Pierre Berton Award – Canada’s top history prize.

Throughout his career, René Cormier has worn many hats as a musician, actor, comedian, composer, artistic director and cultural manager. Currently, he serves as the Manager of Strategy and Regional Cultural Development for the Association acadienne des artistes professionnel.les du Nouveau-Brunswick. He is also the Artistic Director of Zones Théâtrales, a biennial showcase produced by the National Arts Centre that features professional theatre artists from Francophone communities. From 2005 to 2009, he also led the États généraux des arts et de la culture dans la société acadienne au Nouveau-Brunswick.

René has served on the boards of numerous organizations including the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française, the Asssociation des théâtres francophones du Canada, ArtsSmarts and TV5 Québec/Canada.  He has received many awards and accolades including the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France (2003),  the Ordre des francophones d’Amérique (2008) and the Prix de gestionnaire de l’année 2000 du Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick.

Born in Montreal, Sylvie Desrosiers is a novelist, prize-winning children's author and a writer of collections of humour.

After completing a BA in Fine Arts at the University of Montreal, she began her career by contributing to the humour magazine Croc. In 1987, she published her first children’s novel La patte dans le sac, also the first in her highly successful Notdog series. The series has sold more than 400,000 copies and several installments have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, Greek and Italian.

Sylvie has also written for television and film, and co-wrote the script for Nez Rouge. Her novel Au revoir, Camille! won the Prix international du livre Espace-Enfants in Switzerland. In 2008, she received the Governor General’s Literary Award in the children’s literature category for her novel Les trois lieues.

André Dudemaine is the founder and Director of Land InSights, an organization that promotes the growth of Aboriginal culture. For the last 20 years, he has also served as the Director of the Montreal First Peoples' Festival, an international event that reflects the cultural and artistic vitality of the First Nations community in North America.

From 2002 to 2004, he served on the board of the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network (APTN). With a passion for film, he teaches a course on First Nations and film at Concordia University. He also directed and produced Abijévis, an experimental short film which screened at the Festival de Belfort in 1986.

André has been a member of the board of Culture Montréal since the organization’s inception. He is a regular contributor to the magazine 24 Images, where he writes a column on the link between aboriginal people and film. Occasionally, he also contributes to the magazine Revue de la Cinémathèque.

Jian Ghomeshi is the host and co-creator of the national daily talk program Q on CBC Radio One and bold TV. Since its inception in 2007, Q has garnered the largest audience of any cultural affairs program in Canada and has become the highest-rated show in its morning time slot in CBC history.

He has interviewed an array of prominent international figures from prime ministers to sports stars and cultural icons.  His feature interview subjects on Q have included Paul McCartney, Barbara Walters, William Shatner, Al Gore, Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen.

Previously, Jian was the host of the Gemini Award-winning CBC television program, Play. He also presented a number of television documentaries including The End, Screw the Vote and Philanthropy Inc. As a writer and interviewer, he has been published in the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post, El Mundo and the International Herald Tribune. An accomplished musician, he was also a member of the multi-platinum selling folk-rock group, Moxy Früvous.

Tim Jones is a champion for the role that the arts play in transforming cities and communities. Under his direction as President and CEO since 1998, Artscape has grown from a Toronto-based affordable studio provider to an internationally recognized leader in city-building through the arts.

In Toronto, Tim has played a catalytic role in the redevelopment of the Distillery District and galvanized the vision, interest and investment to create Artscape Gibraltar Point and the award-winning Artscape Wychwood Barns. In Canada and abroad, Tim acts as a consultant and advisor on projects, policy and initiatives and speaks at more than 20 conferences and events each year. He and his colleagues at Artscape are passionately committed to exchanging knowledge with others on how arts, culture and creativity can help make our world more livable, sustainable and prosperous.

Gaétan Morency has been a member of Cirque du Soleil’s management team since 1992. He has held the positions of Vice-President, Planning and Development, and Vice-President, Planning and Public Affairs. In his current position as Vice-President of Citizenship, his mandate is to develop the organization’s citizenship in a sustainable way, support social responsibility initiatives, maintain and develop relationships with the cultural, community, governmental and business milieus, and implement the organization’s cultural and social action programs.

Gaétan began his career as a producer of shows and cultural events. He then worked with SODICC, a public cultural and communications development agency. Prior to joining Cirque du Soleil, he was the Manager of ADISQ, Quebec’s association for the recording, concert and video industry.

In addition to his functions at Cirque du Soleil, he is a founding member and Vice-President of the executive board of Culture Montréal. He also is the President and founder of TOHU.

With more than 30 years experience in executive positions in the music industry, Shelley Stein-Sacks has a vast knowledge and in-depth understanding of the Canadian music industry. The author of The Canadian Independent Music Industry: An Examination of Distribution and Access and The Business of Music: A National Training Strategy for Business Skills in the Music Industry, Shelley also developed and delivers a full semester credit course on Marketing, Social Networks, and CyberMarketing for the Music Industry at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Through Brock + Chaloux Group Inc. Shelley provides strategic planning and counseling to various public and private sector clients on cultural and business issues as well as serving as a business coach to up and coming musicians.

Dubbed the “Official Statistician of the Creative Class”, Kevin Stolarick, combines a depth of knowledge with an appreciation of the importance of finding and sharing the knowledge or “pearls of wisdom” gained from his comprehensive understanding of the creative class and the creative economy.

He holds a PhD in Business Administration and an MBA from the Tepper School of Management, Carnegie Mellon University, and a BS in Honors in Applied Computer Science from Illinois State University. He has taught numerous courses in statistical analysis, information systems and regional economic development.

His research interests include the relationship between firm performance and information technology and the impacts of technology, tolerance, talent and quality of place on regional growth and prosperity. Kevin provided quantitative research and analytical support for Richard Florida during the development of his books The Rise of the Creative Class, The Flight of the Creative Class, Who’s Your City? and The Great Reset.

Dan Taylor is the Economic Development Officer for Prince Edward County, Ontario - Canada’s first creative rural economy.

After starting his job in 2001, Dan realized that he was working in a creative rural economy, before he was aware of the language or the concept. Since learning about the language, tools and theory, Dan has become a practical researcher, student and teacher of the practice of creative economy economic development. Prince Edward County’s job creation has significantly outpaced that of Ontario and Canada on a per capita basis as a result of its focus on the creative economy.

Dan’s passion on the subject led him to collaborate with and lead a three-region Creative Economy Data Analysis and Economic Development Action Plan for Eastern Ontario, Durham Region and Southwestern Ontario. As a result of this collaboration, Dan is part of the formation of a new Ontario-based Creative Economy Alliance and is taking on the role of Creative Economy Sector Lead for the Ontario East Economic Development Commission.

Annalee Adair has been the Executive Director of ArtsSmarts since 2001. With over 20 years experience in arts education, public art and community cultural development, Annalee has worked both as an arts specialist at the high school level and as a professor of arts education in the education faculty at the University of Regina. She held the position of Director of Visual Arts for the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils and Program Director for the City of Ottawa's Public Art Program, where she expanded the department to include a new Community Arts Program and an Arts Leadership for Youth Program.

Luc Fortin has been President of the Quebec Musicians’ Guild since 2006. The Guild is a member of the Canadian Federation of Musicians and the International Federation of Musicians. Luc is also Vice-President of the board of the Fonds d’investissement de la culture et des communications (FICC), a venture capital fund that acts as a financial partner for companies that create, produce, distribute and promote cultural products and services. He is a professional musician and manager of his own record label and publishing company.

Shannon Litzenberger is a Toronto-based dance artist, writer, director and arts advocate. Her work in arts policy has contributed significantly to shaping sector-wide advocacy strategies and policy positions on behalf of the arts and culture community.

She is the former Executive Director of the Canadian Dance Assembly, a founding member of Canada’s Performing Arts Alliance and a member of the Canadian Arts Coalition Steering Committee. Recently named the first-ever Metcalf Arts Policy Fellow, she is currently spending time exploring the relationship between arts policy and practice at all levels of government.

Shannon writes frequently on arts policy issues in her blog The Arts Policy Diaries. As a dance artist, she has worked with some of Canada’s most dynamic artistic voices and is currently collaborating with award-winning dancer, choreographer and director Marie-Josée Chartier on the creation of a new work on the theme of Home.

Garry Neil is a cultural policy consultant who works in Canada and internationally from his base in Toronto.  Garry has experience in all aspects of arts and culture, and has worked for clients in all of the cultural industries.  His areas of expertise include broadcasting regulation, film and television production, book publishing, status of the artist and copyright.  He is also the Executive Director of the International Network for Cultural Diversity and has written extensively about globalization and culture.

Alain Pineau has been the National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts since November 2005. Before that, he spent 34 years with the CBC, the last nine as General Manager of Galaxie, CBC’s very successful for-profit pay audio service.

He has been on the board of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation since 1992 and is currently Chair of Statistics Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Cultural Statistics. Alain has an MA from Oxford University (UK) and has completed studies in public administration at the École nationale d’administration publique in Montreal.

Kwende Kefentse is a DJ, writer, researcher and cultural worker. Fascinated by cities, his various professional ventures reflect explorations into how they function, with a particular focus on culture. Previously, he worked as a journalist for the Ottawa Xpress and as a guest author with Richard Florida's Creative Class Exchange.  His academic research about the emergence of hip hop culture and its connection to the built environment is being produced into a feature for the National Film Board's Highrise documentary series. Kwende currently works with a small team of cultural planners to renew the City of Ottawa's high-level Arts and Heritage Plan. 

Janet Naclia is currently the Creative Cultural Liaison with Alberta Recreation and Parks Association’s (ARPA) ACE Communities.  Janet holds a Masters Degree in Art History and has worked in both the commercial division and the non-profit division of the art community in Canada and Ireland.  She has been an arts columnist for various magazines and is a regular arts writer for the Calgary Herald.  Janet is also one of the founding members of Exposure: the Calgary/Banff Photography Festival.

Devon Ostrom holds an MA in curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has graduated from programs in non-profit and human resources management at Ryerson University. He has organized countless installations and exhibitions including the highly acclaimed Streetscape programming for Luminato 2008 at Regent Park and the Parliament Street Slip. Devon is a founder of them.ca, Canada’s largest organization of street artists and serves as the Visual Arts Director for Manifesto Community Projects. He is also a member of the Toronto City Summit Alliance’s Emerging Leaders Network and in 2009, was selected as one of Ryerson Alumni’s Top 30 Under 30.

Alex Rogalski is a Short Cuts Canada programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival. He also programs for the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Toronto. He regularly travels across North America as the coordinator of the One Take Super 8 Event. His Super 8 programs have been included in the Images Festival, Pop Montreal and the WNDX Festival of Avant Garde Film. Alex coordinated Canada’s Top 10 - Short Films in 2008, and curated film programs for the Pacific Cinematheque (Vancouver) and Winnipeg Cinematheque.