Lieutenant Governor of Alberta celebrates ten emerging artists for 2020

Todayville Edmonton

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6 years ago

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Lieutenant Governor of Alberta celebrates ten emerging artists for 2020

Alberta’s 2020 Emerging Artists named

Edmonton (June 4, 2020)

The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation today announced awards totaling $100,000 to the 10 recipients of its 2020 Emerging Artist Award. More than 60 invited guests joined the Zoom awards show, which is now public, and available on the Youtube link above.

“We are pleased to be able to invest in advancing the careers of these outstanding artists at the early stages of their professional development” says Foundation Chair, Arlene Strom. “When economic times are tough, our artists are particularly vulnerable. And in the midst of societal change and upheaval, ensuring our artist voices and perspectives are heard is critical.”

Here are this year’s awardees:

Kablusiak, visual, multidisciplinary artist, Calgary
Amy LeBlanc, writer, Calgary
Luc Tellier, theatre, Edmonton
Carlos Foggin, music, classical, Calgary
Lauren Crazybull, visual, Edmonton
Evan Pearce, multi-media, music, new technology, Edmonton
Molly Wreakes, music, French Horn, Edmonton
Bruce Cinnamon, writer, Edmonton
Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, visual, multimedia, Calgary
Griffin Cork, theatre and film, Calgary

Her Honour, the Honourable Lois E. Mitchell, CM, AOE, LLD, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta congratulated the awardees on a Zoom meeting June 4, 2020. Each awardee receives a $10,000 cash award, a handcrafted medal and 2020 Emerging Artist certificate.

The 10 recipients were selected from 160 applications in a two-tiered adjudication process overseen by The Banff Centre. The adjudication panel included: Denise Clarke, associate artist, One Yellow Rabbit, 2007 Distinguished Artist awardee; Adam Fox, Director of Programs, National Music Centre; Lindsey Sharman, curator, Art Gallery of Alberta; Alice Major; writer, poet, 2017 Distinguished Artist awardee.

Here is some background the each of the artists:

Kablusiak (they/them) is an Inuvialuk artist based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary and holds a BFA in Drawing from the Alberta University of the Arts. Recognition for Kablusiak includes the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize (2017) and the Primary Colours Emerging Artist Award (2018), and short-list nominee for the Sobey Art Awards (2019). A multi-disciplinary artist, they imbue a variety of mediums with their trademark ironic humour to address cultural displacement.

Amy LeBlanc is the author of three books: her debut poetry collection, I know something you don’t know, was published with Gordon Hill Press

in March 2020. Her novella, Unlocking, will be published by the UCalgary Press in 2021. Pedlar Press will publish her short story collection, Homebodies, in 2022. Her very timely master’s thesis is a work of fiction examining pandemics and chronic illness.

Luc Tellier is a theatre actor, director, and educator from Amiskwaciy Waskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton. He’s been seen in over twenty-five professional productions since graduating from MacEwan University’s Theatre Arts Program in 2014. As an arts educator and through his own freelance workshops, he mentors hundreds of students every year – sharing his belief that the arts are for everyone!

Carlos Foggin is driven by his passion to share live orchestral music with as many Albertans as possible! In 2016, he founded the Rocky Mountain Symphony Orchestra which has since performed to more than 30,000 Albertans in over 50 concerts in small southern communities. He is a celebrated pianist, organist and improviser and has performed internationally on some of the world’s greatest organs.

Lauren Crazybull is a Blackfoot Dene artist living in Edmonton. In 2019, Lauren was selected as Alberta’s inaugural artist in residence and was long listed for the Kingston Portrait Prize. Through her art, Lauren is asking poignant questions about how Indigenous identities can be represented, experienced, celebrated and understood through portraiture.

Evan Pearce began his career by editing music videos using found footage for local bands, but he’s now on the leading edge of two new emerging technology art forms: VJ-ing and New Media – working at the intersection of music, video, and leading-edge technology. Evan is fascinated with incorporating XR (Extended Reality) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) in a live performance setting while VJing – and beyond.

Molly Wreakes is a classical french horn player originally from Edmonton, who has performed internationally as both a chamber and orchestral musician. Molly served as the academist with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra In 2018/19 – performing with the orchestra and training with their horn section and orchestra members. Molly is also an avid chamber musician who is inspired to explore community outreach opportunities through music and musical creativity.

Bruce Cinnamon is a writer whose creative work thrives in the radiant sunshine of the gigantic Alberta sky, twisting and bending the familiar prairie landscape into carnivalesque fantasies. Bruce won the 2015 Alberta Views short story contest; his first novel, The Melting Queen, was published by NeWest Press in 2019. He is currently working on his second novel, a fantasy story about a small Alberta town which suddenly vanishes when it is torn into a parallel universe by a predatory City.

Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal is a multi-media artist, community activist, and perpetual learner. She is a recipient of the National BMO 1st Art! Competition Award, and of the 2017 Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Award. Cardinal has been an active member in the urban Indigenous community in Treaty 7 Territory. Her work reflects the teachings she receives along her journey – and invites others to become a part of the process, to partake in its making.

Griffin Cork is a Calgary-born actor and producer in the film and theatre industries. He is co-founder and Artistic Producer of Hoodlum Theatre, a small collective dedicated to creating disruptive and unabashed work. His company Numera Films took home an AMPIA Rosie Award for Best Web Series – Fiction in 2019 for Abracadaver. Griffin is committed to telling engaging, Albertan stories and strives to merge the mediums of film and theatre.

Backgrounder: About the awards

The late Fil Fraser, the late Tommy Banks, the late John Poole and Jenny Belzberg (Calgary) 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 Government of Canada.

Since its inception in 2003, the Foundation has awarded $1,230,000 to 20 Distinguished Artists and 63 Emerging Artists, all Alberta affiliated.

The Foundation administers two awards programs:

The Emerging Artist Awardsprogram, 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 Awardsprogram, 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. The 2019 Distinguished Artist Awards celebration will be in Maskwacis, Battle River region in September 21, 2019.

Todayville’s President Lloyd Lewis is a Board Director of the Foundation and was the Master of Ceremonies for this year’s online awards show.

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Housing in Calgary and Edmonton remains expensive but more affordable than other cities

Published on December 19, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Austin Thompson

In cities across the country, modest homes have become unaffordable for typical families. Calgary and Edmonton have not been immune to this trend, but they’ve weathered it better than most—largely by making it easier to build homes.

Specifically, faster permit approvals, lower municipal fees and fewer restrictions on homebuilders have helped both cities maintain an affordability edge in an era of runaway prices. To preserve that edge, they must stick with—and strengthen—their pro-growth approach.

First, the bad news. Buying a home remains a formidable challenge for many families in Calgary and Edmonton.

For example, in 2023 (the latest year of available data), a typical family earning the local median after-tax income—$73,420 in Calgary and $70,650 in Edmonton—had to save the equivalent of 17.5 months of income in Calgary ($107,300) or 12.5 months in Edmonton ($73,820) for a 20 per cent down payment on a typical home (single-detached house, semi-detached unit or condominium).

Even after managing such a substantial down payment, the financial strain would continue. Mortgage payments on the remaining 80 per cent of the home’s price would have required a large—and financially risky—share of the family’s after-tax income: 45.1 per cent in Calgary (about $2,757 per month) and 32.2 per cent in Edmonton (about $1,897 per month).

Clearly, unless the typical family already owns property or receives help from family, buying a typical home is extremely challenging. And yet, housing in Calgary and Edmonton remains far more affordable than in most other Canadian cities.

In 2023, out of 36 major Canadian cities, Edmonton and Calgary ranked 8th and 14th, respectively, for housing affordability (relative to the median after-tax family income). That’s a marked improvement from a decade earlier in 2014 when Edmonton ranked 20th and Calgary ranked 30th. And from 2014 to 2023, Edmonton was one of only four Canadian cities where median after-tax family income grew faster than the price of a typical home (in Calgary, home prices rose faster than incomes but by much less than in most Canadian cities). As a result, in 2023 typical homes in Edmonton cost about half as much (again, relative to the local median after-tax family income) as in mid-sized cities such as Windsor and Kelowna—and roughly one-third as much as in Toronto and Vancouver.

To be clear, much of Calgary and Edmonton’s improved rank in affordability is due to other cities becoming less and less affordable. Indeed, mortgage payments (as a share of local after-tax median income) also increased since 2014 in both Calgary and Edmonton.

But the relative success of Alberta’s two largest cities shows what’s possible when you prioritize homebuilding. Their approach—lower municipal fees, faster permit approvals and fewer building restrictions—has made it easier to build homes and helped contain costs for homebuyers. In fact, homebuilding has been accelerating in Calgary and Edmonton, in contrast to a sharp contraction in Vancouver and Toronto. That’s a boon to Albertans who’ve been spared the worst excesses of the national housing crisis. It’s also a demographic and economic boost for the province as residents from across Canada move to Alberta to take advantage of the housing market—in stark contrast to the experience of British Columbia and Ontario, which are hemorrhaging residents.

Alberta’s big cities have shown that when governments let homebuilders build, families benefit. To keep that advantage, policymakers in Calgary and Edmonton must stay the course.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Austin Thompson

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute

Alberta

Danielle Smith slams Skate Canada for stopping events in Alberta over ban on men in women’s sports

Published on December 17, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta premier has denounced Skate Canada as ‘disgraceful’ for refusing to host events in the province because of a ban on ‘transgender’ men in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has demanded an apology after Skate Canada refused to continue holding events in Alberta.

In a December 16 post on X, Smith denounced Skate Canada’s recent decision to stop holding competitions in Alberta due to a provincial law keeping gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports.

“Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females,” Smith declared. “This view is held by a vast majority of Albertans and Canadians. It is also common sense and common decency.”

Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females.

This view is held by a vast majority of Albertans and Canadians. It is also common sense and common decency.

Skate Canada‘s refusal to hold events in… pic.twitter.com/n4vbkTx6B0

— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) December 16, 2025

“Skate Canada‘s refusal to hold events in Alberta because we choose to protect women and girls in sport is disgraceful,” she declared.

“We expect they will apologize and adjust their policies once they realize they are not only compromising the fairness and safety of their athletes, but are also offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta,” Smith continued.

Earlier this week, Skate Canada announced their decision in a statement to CBC News, saying, “Following a careful assessment of Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport.”

Under Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, passed last December, biological men who claim to be women are prevented from competing in women’s sports.

Notably, Skate Canada’s statement failed to address safety and fairness concerns for women who are forced to compete against stronger, and sometimes violent, male competitors who claim to be women.

While Skate Canada maintains that gender-confused men should compete against women, the International Olympic Committee is reportedly moving to ban gender-confused men from women’s Olympic sports.

The move comes after studies have repeatedly revealed what almost everyone already knew was true, namely that males have a considerable innate advantage over women in athletics.

Indeed, a recent study published in Sports Medicine found that a year of “transgender” hormone drugs results in “very modest changes” in the inherent strength advantages of men.

Additionally, male athletes competing in women’s sports are known to be violent, especially toward female athletes who oppose their dominance in women’s sports.

Last August, Albertan male powerlifter “Anne” Andres was suspended for six months after a slew of death threats and harassments against his female competitors.

In February, Andres ranted about why men should be able to compete in women’s competitions, calling for “the Ontario lifter” who opposes this, apparently referring to powerlifter April Hutchinson, to “die painfully.”

Interestingly, while Andres was suspended for six months for issuing death threats, Hutchinson was suspended for two years after publicly condemning him for stealing victories from women and then mocking his female competitors on social media. Her suspension was later reduced to a year.