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Alberta

Alberta’s 2022 Lt. Governor Emerging Artists Named

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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.

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Alberta

ASIRT investigations concluded on fatal officer-involved shooting involving the RCMP.

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Incident investigation report from the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT)

Introduction

On December 22, 2022, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was directed pursuant to s. 46.1 of the Police Act to investigate a then non-fatal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer-involved shooting. The shooting of the affected person (AP) was reported to have happened during an interaction with him, as a result of him being a suspect in a complaint of a man with a gun.

While AP initially survived, he died of complications from the shooting the following day.

ASIRT’s Investigation

ASIRT’s investigation was comprehensive and thorough, conducted using current investigative protocols and principles relating to Major Case Management. Information from civilian witnesses, the subject and a witness officers, and importantly video recordings provided sufficient information to determine whether the force used by the subject officer during this incident was reasonable.

Circumstances Surrounding the Officer-Involved Shooting

On December 01, 2022, Maskwacis RCMP received a call reporting that a male [AP] had been drinking and left the caller’s house with a gun. AP was shooting the gun in the country (believed to be the area around the residence). Two RCMP officers responded.

Witness officer (WO) located AP walking on the road with a rifle. AP walked toward WO’s marked police vehicle with the rifle pointed at the vehicle/WO, while WO was seated in the driver’s seat. WO then exited his vehicle with his carbine rifle and moved to the rear of his vehicle while AP kept the rifle pointed at the police vehicle. The subject officer (SO) arrived on scene, but came from the opposite direction. AP turned around and walked toward SO with the barrel of the rifle pointed upwards. SO exited his police vehicle with his service pistol drawn and walked toward AP while he
repeatedly provided verbal direction to AP to drop the firearm. AP and SO were walking toward each other; at that time AP still had the barrel of the rifle pointed upward. As SO and AP got within approximately five meters of each other, AP lowered the barrel of the rifle and pointed it directly at SO. SO fired multiple rounds and struck AP with four rounds causing AP to stumble, drop the rifle and fall to the ground. AP initially survived the shooting and was transported to an Edmonton hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. The following day, AP succumbed to his injuries.

Analysis

The subject officer was lawfully placed and acting in the execution of his duties in dealing with AP as a person who was the subject of a complaint about him being in possession of a firearm and shooting it off.

The Use of Force

Under s. 25 of the Criminal Code, police officers are permitted to use as much force as is necessary for the execution of their duties. Where this force is intended or is likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm, the officer must believe on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the self-preservation of the officer or preservation of anyone under that officer’s protection.

A police officer’s use of force is not to be assessed on a standard of perfection nor using the benefit of hindsight.

With the benefit of hindsight, time for detached reflection and knowledge of the ultimate outcome, it is easy to speculate about how things could have been done differently. That is not the standard, however, against which an officer’s conduct is measured. The question is, applying principles of proportionality, necessity, and reasonableness, whether the force used falls into a range of possible reasonable responses.

Proportionate Response

Proportionality requires balancing a use of force with the action to which it responds. Here, the subject officers were faced with an individual that was armed with a gun and pointing it in their direction. As such, the response by the subject officers in using their respective firearms to shoot AP was proportionate to the threat of death or grievous bodily harm that he reasonably posed to both of them.

Reasonably Necessary

As set out previously in this report, AP presented as a lethal threat to both SO and WO given his actions in pointing his rifle at them. While WO did not shoot during this incident that does not impact the analysis of SO’s actions. Under the circumstances as then faced by SO, no other use of force options were reasonably available for attempted use. The use by SO of his firearm to incapacitate this lethal threat was reasonably necessary. Given the above, the defence available to SO under s. 25 of the Criminal Code would apply.

Conclusion

Under s. 25 of the Criminal Code a police officer is justified in doing what he or she is authorized to do and to use as much force as is reasonably necessary where he or she has reasonable grounds to do so. Force intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm is justified if the officer believes, on reasonable grounds, that the force was necessary to prevent the death or grievous bodily harm of the officer and/or any other person. The analysis under s.34 of the Criminal Code leads to a similar finding that subject officer’s actions were lawfully permitted.

After a thorough, independent and objective investigation into the conduct of the subject officers, it is my opinion that they were lawfully placed and acting properly in the execution of their duties. There is no evidence to support any belief that any officer engaged in any unlawful or unreasonable conduct that would give rise to an offence. The force used was proportionate, necessary and reasonable in all the circumstances.

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Alberta

Alberta requests more control over provincial immigration system

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Alberta is requesting more control over its provincial immigration to address its skilled workforce shortage, including increasing Ukrainian evacuee participation in the job market.

Premier Danielle Smith has written a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking him to re-evaluate his government’s decision limiting the number of allocations for Alberta’s provincial nominee program in 2024. Last week, the federal government informed the province it would only receive 9,750 such allotments – which is the same number of allocations Alberta received in 2023 and is less than the 10,140 for 2024 the federal government had originally allocated.

As of February 2024, Alberta accounts for just under 12 per cent of Canada’s population, but it leads the nation in net employment growth, with 42.8 per cent of the country’s employment gains between January and February 2024. By not providing the requested increase to Alberta’s provincial nominee allocations, the federal government is restricting the province’s ability to keep up with its growing labour market demands, especially as it relates to integrating Ukrainian evacuees into Alberta’s job market.

“Alberta is growing and that is good news. Since January 2023, more than 100,000 new jobs have been created in our province and our employment rate has led the country even longer. At the same time, we continue to experience labour shortages that could be resolved by welcoming skilled workers from around the world, including evacuees from Ukraine, many of whom have the exact skills that our job market most needs. Alberta has long been the economic engine of Canada and we are once again requesting Ottawa respect section 95 of the Constitution and let us welcome the skilled individuals we need into our province on our terms.”

Danielle Smith, Premier

With Alberta’s population growth at levels not seen in four decades, Alberta’s Provincial Nominee Program is best placed to address the province’s unique immigration and economic goals.

Part of Alberta’s population growth has resulted from Russia’s invasion in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since that time, Alberta has welcomed a significant number of Ukrainian evacuees to the province. While it is anticipated that many will return to Ukraine following the war, Alberta is also expecting a number of families to apply for permanent residency via the Alberta Advantage Immigration Program. An increase in the number of allocations from the federal government would assist these new Albertans to fill positions in the province’s workforce.

“Immigration is key to Alberta’s ability to address labour shortages and to grow our economy. This limitation imposed by the federal government on our provincial nominee program will be a very difficult pill to swallow, not only for businesses that need this skilled labour but also to the many Ukrainian evacuees who have the skills we need and wish to stay permanently in Alberta.”

Muhammad Yaseen, Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism

Quick facts

  • The federal government through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada sets provincial immigration nomination limits. It also approves all permanent resident applications.
  • Alberta maximized its 9,750 nomination allocations in 2023, with a total of 10,029 nominations issued within the federal government administrative buffer.

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