Alberta
Alberta’s 2022 Lt. Governor Emerging Artists Named
Alberta’s 2022 Lt. Governor Emerging Artists Named
The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation announces awards totaling $110,000 to the 11 recipients of its 2022 Emerging Artist Award.
“When economic times are tough, our artists are particularly vulnerable,” says Foundation Chair, Arlene Strom. “We are thrilled to invest $110,000 this year in advancing the careers of these outstanding artists at the early stages of their professional development.”
2022 Emerging Artist Recipients:
Perpetual Atife Saxophone, Calgary
Vicki Chau Filmmaker, Calgary
Arlan Vriens Violin, Edmonton; Toronto
Eden Tremayne Soprano, Calgary
Omar Mouallem Writer, Edmonton
Trina Moyles Writer, Peace River
Kiona Ligtvoet Visual Arts, Edmonton
Tenaj Williams Actor, Calgary
Ally McIntyre Visual Arts, Edmonton
Moni Brar Writer/Poet, Calgary
Nahanni McKay Visual Arts, Banff
The Award’s patron, Her Honour, the Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta AOE, B.Sc., LLD (hon) awarded the 2022 Emerging Artists at a celebration hosted by the County of Lac La Biche and Portage College on June 10, 2022. Each awardee receives a $10,000 cash award, a handcrafted medal and a certificate.
The 11 recipients were selected from 140 applications in an adjudication process overseen by The Banff Centre. The adjudication panel included: Darren Fung, renowned composer based out of Los Angeles, originally from Edmonton; Sean Caulfield, artist and Centennial Professor in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Alberta; Patricia Darbasie, Alberta actor, director and educator; Jenna Butler, 2014 LG Emerging Artist, award-winning author and educator; Derek Beaulieu, Jury Facilitator, Director of Literary Arts at the Banff Centre.
For more information on the awardees visit artsawards.ca
Who are the 2022 Emerging Artists?
Perpetual Atife Saxophonist, Calgary: Perpetual Atife is retelling African stories and music through her practice as a jazz saxophonist and songwriter. Her entrepreneurial spirit and energy are as impressive as her skills as a band leader and performer. The aural tapestry she creates combines her Nigerian roots and the realities she exists in today. Her debut album, a collection of her journey through instrumental music, spoken word and vocal music, is due to be released in the Fall of 2022.
Vicki Chau Filmmaker, Calgary: Vicki Chau is a filmmaker and media artist based in Calgary. Her two short films Pulled Strings and Hearth of the Lion capture a slice of her Chinese-Vietnamese heritage in a beautiful lyrical way. Her family and cultural identity have been a core inspiration in her artistic practice and help her to promote the appreciation of both Chinese and Vietnamese culture through a uniquely Canadian perspective. She was selected for the WarnerMedia Access Festivals Program at Toronto’s Reelworld Film Festival in 2021.
Arlan Vriens, Violin, Edmonton/Toronto: Arlan Vriens is an Edmonton-born classical violinist noted for his ability to evoke strong, emotional performances with difficult, contemporary repertoire that pushes the boundaries of what the instrument was designed to do. Equally at home performing newly-written contemporary works or rediscovering long-lost violin techniques, Arlan is committed to nurturing and critiquing classical music as a living, evolving practice. His chamber music and solo violin projects have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the arts councils of Alberta, Ontario, and Newfoundland.
Eden Tremayne Soprano, Calgary: Eden Tremayne delivers an authenticity and emotional strength that is impressive to see in an emerging opera singer. A soprano with both a strong technical facility and range, she is noted for her stirring performances. For the past three seasons, Ms. Tremayne has been a McPhee Artist with Calgary Opera. She had her Calgary Opera mainstage debut In the 2019-2020 season as Clotilde in Bellini’s Norma and covered Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème. Tremayne was previously featured as an Apprentice Artist with the San Diego Opera and a Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist with Vancouver Opera.
Omar Mouallem Writer, Edmonton: Omar Mouallem has established himself as a talented young journalist and filmmaker to watch. With the arrival of his important new book of non-fiction, Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas, he’s an important voice in Canadian literature with a long career ahead. A second-generation Canadian born and raised in Northern Alberta’s Muslim Lebanese community, Mouallem has become known for his ability to intertwine human interest stories with world history and broad social issues. Omar co-authored the national bestseller Inside the Inferno: A Firefighter’s Story of the Brotherhood that Saved Fort McMurray and co-directed Digging in the Dirt (with Dylan Rhys Howard), a raw look at the psychological toll of oil and gas labour.
Trina Moyles Writer, Peace River: Trina Moyles blends journalistic knowledge with literary expertise and a love for the land. She grew up in the northern community of Peace River, Alberta (Treaty 8), where she spent much of her childhood immersed in the boreal forest. Moyles’s first book, Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the World was published in 2018 by the University of Regina Press. Her second book, a memoir and frontline reportage on the increasing prevalence of wildfire in North America, Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest, was published in 2021 by Penguin Random House Canada. Lookout won a National Outdoors Book Award in 2021 and has recently been nominated as a finalist for the 2022 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize and a finalist for the Memoir Award at the 2022 Alberta Literary Awards.
Kiona Ligtvoet Visual Arts, Edmonton: Kiona Ligtvoet looks to experiences with family and the land they live and work on to create paintings, prints and installations that function as both a personal archive, as well as non-linear storytelling. Kiona grew up west of Edmonton near the hamlet of Calahoo where she lived with her moshom and relatives on scrip land. Her family lines are Cree and Métis descending from Michel First Nation, as well as Dutch/ mixed European. Kiona works in painting, printmaking and drawing, recollecting personal stories of grief and tenderness. Most recent exhibitions have been sahkitok mistahi at Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre (2021), and her solo show, These Are the Things at Latitude 53 (2021). She is currently writing her debut graphic novel We Were Younger Once (2022).
Tenaj Williams Actor, Calgary: Tenaj Williams has built on his community theatre experiences to create a provincial and national footprint as an actor, professionally performing on stages in Alberta and across the country. He has recently branched out into film and television landing roles on various TV series, most prominently the hit CTV comedy show, JANN. Tenaj hopes to further advance his work in the arts and be instrumental in helping to create and foster safe, and brave spaces for diverse and emerging artists. He plans to develop his skills as a director and learn more about theatre production and management.
Ally McIntyre Visual Arts, Edmonton: Ally McIntyre creates bold, powerful paintings that combine passages of abstraction with naturalistic imagery, and which contain moments of aggressive and expressive mark-making, alongside more introspective, sensitive passages of drawing. This blending of visual languages results in highly compelling imagery that fosters unexpected narratives and poetic associations for viewers. Bold and assertive, her works question the prevailing gendered association of large-scale art and expressionism. In 2015, McIntyre was awarded the HIX Award 2015 presented by Tracey Emin and the Jealous Prize 2015. Exhibits include various galleries in London, UK, The Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy, The London Art Fair, Start Art Fair and Art Toronto. She was a finalist in the RBC national painting competition (2018). Her solo exhibition ‘Dog Day Circus’ was featured at the Saatchi Gallery in London, UK (2022). Her work can be found in private collections in Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Moni Brar Writer/Poet, Calgary: Moni Brar has published in many of the most respected journals in Canada and received a number of the top writing awards. A Punjabi Canadian writer exploring diasporan guilt and intergenerational trauma, she is poised to make major contributions to the literary arts in Canada. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and multiple Best of the Net awards and was the winner of the SAAG Arts Writing Prize, runner-up in PRISM international’s Grouse Grind Prize, honourable mention in Room magazine’s Poetry Prize, and a finalist in the Alberta Magazine Awards and the Subnivean Awards. Her work can be found in Best Canadian Poetry 2022, the Literary Review of Canada, Passages North, Prairie Fire, Hobart, and the League of Canadian Poets’ “Poem in Your Pocket” postcard series.
Nahanni McKay Visual Arts, Banff: McKay’s creative practice utilizes photography, digital media, as well as performances in the landscape to explore pressing questions related to environmental change. The work often considers the ways landscape and animals have been depicted historically, particularly in the context of national parks, in order to investigate the complex interrelationship between colonial power structures, identity and ecological degradation and loss. Nahanni uses her photography to bring awareness of the need to coexist with wildlife to prevent further harm to the land we reside on. Exhibits include Personal Structures Exhibition, European Cultural Centre, Venice, Italy (2022), Loop 14, Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition (2020), EXPOSURE Photography Festival Emerging Artists Showcase, Contemporary Calgary and more.
About The Awards
Founders Fil Fraser, Tommy Banks, John Poole and Jenny Belzberg established the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation in 2003 to celebrate and promote excellence in the arts. The endowments they established were created with philanthropic dollars and gifts from the Province of Alberta and the Government of Canada. Since its inception in 2003, the Foundation has awarded $1,430,000 to 23 Distinguished Artists and 74 Emerging Artists, all Alberta affiliated. The Foundation administers two awards programs: The Emerging Artist Awards program, established in 2008, gives up to 10 awards of $10,000 each to support and encourage promising artists early in their professional careers. Emerging Artist Awards are given out in even years. The Distinguished Artist Awards program, begun in 2005, gives up to three awards of $30,000 each in recognition of outstanding achievement in, or contribution to, the arts in Alberta. Distinguished Artist Awards are given in odd years.
President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Nate Horner issued the following statement about the ongoing negotiations with TEBA and the ATA:
“After announcing its intention to strike last week, the ATA provided its members with a document titled ‘Talking Points’ for teachers to use when speaking to parents and students about the current bargaining situation.
“The document falsely claims that the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA) does not have the mandate to ‘negotiate on important issues such as class complexity, class size, support for students.’
“There are also other statements in the document that are misleading and confusing for parents, teachers and most importantly our kids, who are explicitly targeted by these communications.
“To be clear, the only item outstanding between the ATA and TEBA for a new contract is the union’s additional salary demands.
“TEBA’s most recent offer to the ATA included a guarantee to hire 3,000 more teachers over the next three years at a cost of about three-quarters of a billion dollars. This is what the ATA asked for in its previous offer and government’s response met that request. The parties are no longer disputing negotiations on that point.
“The current offer provides a salary increase of at least 12 per cent over four years with more than 95 per cent of teachers receiving more through a market adjustment, and would result in the best deal for teachers in all of Western Canada.
“The information in the ATA document is inaccurate. It intentionally misinforms the public, parents and students. TEBA has been left with no choice but to launch a legal challenge. The Alberta Labour Relations Board received our complaint today, asking the ATA and its president Jason Schilling to immediately retract their false claims and to stop using Alberta’s students and families for leverage in a bargaining dispute.
“The ATA’s leadership and communications strategy targeting families and children with false and misleading claims raises serious ethical concerns. The government must now correct the false narrative the ATA has created.
“I look forward to a speedy resolution of this complaint with the Labour Relations Board. When we have our resolution, we will consider next steps.”
Note: This post was written from notes prepared for a panel at the Canada Strong and Free Conference in Calgary on Sept 6. I am grateful for the invitation and the opportunity to explore solutions to recognized interprovincial barriers and push further beyond.
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Alberta is the number one destination for Canadians seeking a better life. In the last 5 years, 1 of 3 Canadians moving out of their provinces seeking a better life have come to Alberta. People come to Alberta to escape stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, and the bureaucratic chokeholds of central Canada. They come for work, for opportunity, and for the chance to get ahead. Alberta doesn’t just have oil and gas; it has policies and an entrepreneurial culture that reward hard work. (Every province, except for PEI, has hydrocarbon resources, but most chose not to exploit them). That’s why the province often draws more people than it loses.
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But Alberta cannot assume it will always stay ahead. Prosperity, like liberty, is not automatic, and it can vanish if Albertans get complacent. To remain the country’s economic frontier, Alberta must keep moving. That means tearing down the barriers to trade and commerce we still have and fighting the new ones Ottawa and other provinces are busy inventing.
The costs of standing still are enormous. Economists estimate internal trade barriers drain Canada of up to $130 billion a year, as much as seven percent of GDP, a fraction of what the Trump tariffs would inflict. For Alberta alone, even a ten percent reduction in interprovincial barriers would be worth $7.3 billion annually. And when Quebec blocked the Energy East pipeline, Alberta lost the chance to ship crude worth as much as $15 billion a year — roughly one-fifth of its economy. That isn’t theory; that is lost paycheques, foregone tax revenue, and hospitals and schools that never got funded.
Alberta has worked to make itself freer than most provinces. Liquor was privatized decades ago—Ditto for property registries. The New West Partnership has opened labour mobility and procurement between Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C. Alberta imposes no cultural or linguistic tests on newcomers. No PST. These are the reasons people come here — because it’s easier to find work, to start a business, to access pristine natural environments, to raise your children, and to get on with your life. Less bureaucracy and fewer people telling you what to do and how to live.
But there are still cracks in the foundation. Alberta’s liquor market is open on the retail side, but still congested at the warehouse level due to the AGLC monopoly. Professional guilds in law, teaching, and health care slow down credential recognition. Public procurement often tilts local in ways that make no sense. And like every province, Alberta still bows to Ottawa’s telecommunications rules, the banking oligopoly, the dairy and poultry cartels (supply management), even though it benefits Quebec farmers and hurts Alberta’s. These barriers cost real money and serve no useful purpose.
If those are the old barriers, new ones are emerging. The most notorious new barrier isn’t new at all. This is the recently resurrected protectionist reflex in the RoC. For a century and a half, Canadians have built a culture that is contrary to the dream of their founding fathers to have open trade within the country. Canadians like to mock Donald Trump’s tariffs, but their instincts are no different. When Trump tariffed Canadian steel, Ottawa’s immediate answer was “We’ll buy Canadian” as retaliation. The elbows-up, “buy local” campaigns are no different from the commercial nationalism Trump is using. And the “buy local” impetus precedes Trump. They prop up the cartels and marketing boards, the oligopolistic giants in telecoms, banking, groceries, and construction. Such reflexes are not based on free market ideas.
What makes this 21st-century mercantilism sting even more is the lack of any real appetite in Ottawa to defend free trade. When Mark Carney announced he would “help” canola farmers, it was a double insult. First, it signalled that in the Prime Minister’s Office, there is no courage to fight for open markets abroad — subsidies at home are easier than complicated negotiations. Second, those subsidies are no gift: they are paid for by the very farmers they are supposed to help, through taxes collected in Saskatchewan and Alberta, among others, laundered through Ottawa’s bureaucracy, and handed back with a smile. This is Canada’s oligopoly culture in miniature: no defence of free markets, more subsidies to placate, and more Ottawa bureaucrats to process the paperwork. All of these come at a price. Ottawa money is never free money.
And the irony deepens. Carney himself promised that interprovincial barriers would be gone by July 1, 2025. He did not deliver. And his latest announcement of a new “process” to expedite infrastructure risks does precisely the opposite — adding new layers of federal meddling, vetoes and Ottawa bureaucrats into what should be provincial decisions.
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The enforcement of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, along with the surrounding culture, is a recent development. What began as workplace training has evolved into a mechanism for bureaucrats and gatekeepers to extend their authority. In some regions, such as Ontario, DEI mandates have been codified into law, forcing individuals to think and act in ways that are not of their own choosing.
This kind of identitarian enforcement saps productivity, creates “bullsh*t jobs” focused on compliance, and categorizes people instead of promoting unity among them. Most concerning is the way it restricts mobility for workers who don’t fit ideological criteria, punishing those who refuse to conform. This system creates opportunities only for a select, tiny class of individuals.
Alberta has a distinct advantage in this context, as it has not fully embraced the DEI agenda—apart from federal agencies and affiliated organizations, sadly including our own ATB. However, it must remain vigilant against the encroaching imposition of these practices.
The third significant challenge we face on the horizon is “debanking.” In 2022, we witnessed how swiftly Ottawa could order banks to freeze accounts, and how readily banks complied. Since then, federal regulators have been extending their influence under the guise of anti-money laundering regulations. The reality is straightforward: industries or individuals that federal governments deem undesirable can be cut off from financial services. For Alberta, with its energy sector labelled as a threat to the planet, this poses a considerable risk. Entire industries—or even individuals who consume “too much” energy—could soon find themselves excluded from the marketplace by radicals in the PMO.
David Suzuki once called for criminally charging folks he considered environmental offenders, and the NDP has expressed a preference for criminalizing support for the oil and gas sector (The NDP, ostensible fond of books in schools and free speech, also wants to criminalize asking questions about non-existent mass graves and the fictional narrative of genocide in Canada). A free economy loses its meaning if citizens can be excluded from it through government decrees. Alberta must protect its residents by establishing ATB as a fortress for banking, addressing any divisive tendencies, and enshrining access to banking as a civil right. Alberta needs to protect its citizens when those federally chartered banks act as enforcers for Ottawa.
So what does moving forward look like? Alberta has a strong culture of enterprise, but it cannot rest on its laurels. Unless it works to keep ahead, others will eventually catch up. Alberta must double down on being the most desirable place in Canada to live and work. That means bold and greater transformational reforms.
Breaking the cartel-like influence of professional regulators—such as teachers, lawyers, doctors, and nurses—who have transformed their organizations into barriers is crucial. These groups often prosecute their members to enforce ideological beliefs that most Albertans do not support.
Additionally, we need to ensure that access to banking is protected in provincial law, regulating credit unions so that no Albertan can be denied banking services for political reasons. We should also consider breaking up large municipalities to encourage smaller communities to compete for residents and businesses.
Ending the equalization payments and replacing them with a Goods and Services Tax (GST) transfer to Ottawa is necessary to ensure that Alberta’s wealth benefits Albertans directly. Healthcare delivery must be reformed so that patients receive timely services and genuine choices.
Furthermore, we should deregulate trucking and housing construction to make life more affordable for families. Finally, we must tackle public service unions that operate like political monopolies, using examples from small towns like Coaldale to demonstrate how reform can begin at the grassroots level.
Canada advocates for free trade but often behaves like a medieval guild. Alberta has demonstrated that a more liberated approach is viable, but the province must continue to leverage its advantages. This involves resisting cartels, challenging the banks, dismantling outdated barriers, and preventing the emergence of new ones before they become too imposing.
Alberta has always been a frontier — a place where people come to build, take risks, and prosper. Frontiers are not maintained by standing still; they thrive by moving forward. If Alberta continues to push ahead, it can remain the engine of prosperity and the most desirable place to live and work. However, if it becomes complacent, it risks falling behind, becoming weaker, and Ottawa will be more than willing to take advantage of that.
The choice is simple: Alberta can either be fenced in by cartels and bureaucrats, or it can break the fences and keep the frontier open. That is the task, and it is one worthy of Alberta’s spirit.
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