Other speakers include…

Colin Mochrie

 

Colin Mochrie came to international prominence for his memorable appearances on both the British and American versions of the top-rated improv series Whose Line Is It, Anyway? He is a 25-year acting veteran and an alumnus of Toronto’s famous Second City, the comedy training ground of the likes of Martin Short, John Candy, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, and Dan Ackroyd.

 

Mochrie has also appeared on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Getting Along Famously, Are You Smarter Than A Canadian 5th Grader, Living in Your Car, Men With Brooms, Death Comes to Town, The Ron James Show, Degrassi High, and She’s the Mayor. Recently, he appeared in the independent films Young Triffie, Inconceivable, Surviving My Mother, Puck Hogs, and Gravy Train. He is also the author of Not Quite the Classics, a book of stories that takes the first and last lines from familiar classics and re-imagines everything in between.

 

Mochrie was named Canadian Comedy Person of the Year at the Canadian Comedy Awards; and has won a Writer’s Guild of Canada award; the “Male Improviser of the Year Award” from the Chicago Improv Festival ; and a Gemini Award for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Program or Series. He also received the Barbara Hamilton Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre and Advocacy from the Dora Mavor Moore Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Actra Awards.

Terry O’Reilly
Host of CBC/Sirius Radio's Under the Influence

 

Terry O’Reilly is the familiar voice behind the hit CBC radio shows O’Reilly on Advertising, The Age of Persuasion, and his current program, Under the Influence, where he explores the business, the craft, and the promise of promotion. In his intriguing talks, O’Reilly explores how our culture is shaped by marketing, as well as providing his expertise on branding, campaigns, spin, and more.

 

O'Reilly began his career in radio, and then went on to become an award-winning copywriter for a number of Toronto advertising agencies. He created campaigns for many of the top brands in the country, including Labatt, Molson, Bell, and The Hudson's Bay Company. In 1990, Terry co-founded Pirate Radio & Television with a staff of 50, with eight recording studios in Toronto and New York City.

 

O'Reilly has received Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada, The Television Bureau of Canada, and the American Marketing Association. He has also been granted an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from McMaster University in 2012, an Honorary Bachelor of Applied Arts Degree from Humber College in 2014, and an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law Degree from St. Mary's University in Halifax in 2015.

 

He has co-written the bestselling book, The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture, and his second book, tentatively titled Lessons From Under The Influence will be published in the spring of 2017.

Sarah Haider

 

Sarah is an American activist, speaker and Executive Director of Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA). Born in Pakistan and raised in Texas, Sarah spent her early youth as a practicing Muslim, leaving religion in her late teens.

 

Today, Sarah advocates for the acceptance of religious dissent and works to create local support communities for those who have left Islam. In addition to freethought, Sarah is particularly passionate about civil liberties and women’s rights.

 

Sarah has been profiled and featured in numerous magazines, news outlets, and shows including The Economist, Slate, BBC, Global Journalist, Quillette, National Review, the Daily Beast, and NPR.

 

You can reach Sarah at @SarahTheHaider and read more about EXMNA at www.exmuslims.org.

Catherine Reitman

 

Catherine Reitman is an actress, comedian, producer, writer and director best known for her roles in ABC’s hit show Blackish, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and as the creator and star of CBC’s Workin’ Moms. She was a member of the Sunday Company at the influential Groundlings improv theatre and school in Los Angeles, CA and has had roles in other high-profile film and TV series including How I Met Your Mother, Real Wedding Crashers, I love You, Man, and Knocked Up. Reitman’s writing and producing credits include CBC’s Workin’ Moms, VH1’s Miss You Much, and the web series Breakin’ it Down with Catherine Reitman.

 

In 2016, Reitman formed Wolf & Rabbit Entertainment ULC. with her husband Philip Sternberg to produce the half-hour, single-camera comedy Workin’ Moms for CBC, which was recently renewed for a third season. She is the creator, executive producer, writer and star of the series, starring alongside Sternberg. In addition, Reitman directed several episodes in seasons 1 and 2. Workin’ Moms received five Canadian Screen Award nominations in 2017 including Best Actress, Comedy, for Reitman, and Best Series, Comedy.

 

Reitman has appeared as a featured speaker at the BANFF World Media Festival including on the Revitalization of Canadian Comedy panel in June 2017, and CBC’s Breakfast of Show Runner Champions and In Conversation with Kent Alterman, Comedy Central in June 2018. Catherine presented at the renowned TEDx Talks Toronto in Fall 2017.

Deb McGrath

 

McGrath first started her career at The Second City Toronto, Ontario in 1983, where she was a writer and actress, and eventually a director.

 

McGrath has made numerous guest appearances on a variety of Canadian TV series and had a regular role in the first season of Paradise Falls. She starred with her husband, Colin Mochrie, in two television series, CBC's Getting Along Famously and the children's series Seven Little Monsters. She also starred on Little Mosque on the Prairie in which she played Mayor Popowitcz.

 

In 2003, she formed a comedy troupe called Women Fully Clothed. Fellow cast members Kathy Greenwood, Robin Duke, Jayne Eastwood, Teresa Pavlinek and McGrath perform sketches about situations ordinary women face every day. McGrath left the troupe in the first half of 2009.

 

She has also done voices in several other animated shows including George and Martha, Stories From My Childhood, George Shrinks, Diabolik, The Raccoons, Babar, Little Bear, Blazing Dragons, Mr. Men and Little Miss, My Dad the Rock Star, Bob and Margaret, Anatole, Freaky Stories, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, The Neverending Story, Free Willy, Corduroy, Bad Dog, Flying Rhino Junior High, Medabots, The Berenstain Bears, Birdz, Flash Gordon and Franklin as well as the feature film Franklin and the Green Knight.

Jamil Jivani
Award-Winning Activist | Lawyer

 

Jamil Jivani tackles some of the biggest challenges in the world as a lawyer, community organizer, and teacher. With research and teaching appointments at Yale Law School and Osgoode Hall Law School, Jamil focuses on issues that impact youth, immigrants, and low-income families. He is also the founder of the Citizen Empowerment Project, a public education organization leading initiatives related to policing, racial profiling, democratic participation, voter turnout and economic development.

 

Jamil’s change leadership is informed by his personal journey of empowerment from being a failing high school student and working as a dishwasher, to attending the most exclusive law school in the world. Coming from a single parent household, as a youth he nearly fell into many of the traps that send young men on a detour away from success. It is this experience that propelled him into activism, focusing on issues such as bridging the gap between police and communities, overcoming the radicalization of youth, and encouraging young people to achieve success. His TEDx Toronto talk, How Racial Profiling Hurts Everyone, Including the Police, has been viewed over 110,000 times.

 

Jamil is the director of law and policy at Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit organization founded to develop solutions to the issues raised in J.D. Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. He has also served as Vice Chair of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, and has volunteered with youth organizations in Kenya, Egypt, and Belgium.

 

Jamil’s work in disadvantaged neighborhoods in North America and Europe has led him to appear on BBC, CBC, CTV and TVO. His writing has been published by The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post and Huffington Post.

 

Jamil graduated from Yale Law School in 2013, and formerly served as President of the Yale Black Law Students Association. While at Yale, Jamil worked for Senator Cory Booker in New Jersey, as a Connecticut high school teacher, and as a Manhattan corporate lawyer. Since graduating, he has practiced corporate law in Toronto at Torys LLP, and was named the 2015 Young Lawyer of the Year by the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers. He was also a 2016 recipient of th eThompson Reuters’ Lexpert Zenith Award for Diversity and Inclusion.

 

Jamil’s first book, Why Young Men, was published in April, 2018.

Sook Yin Lee

 

Sook-Yin Lee is a filmmaker, musician, actor, visual artist, choreographer and radio & TV broadcaster. The former MuchMusic VJ hosted and co-produced the Gabriel Award-Winning personal storytelling program DNTO on CBC Radio One and returned to the national broadcaster with the critically-acclaimed podcast, Sleepover. She starred in the groundbreaking movie, Shortbus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, earning her the 2007 Best Supporting Actress award from the International Cinephile Society. In 2014, she won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance as Olivia Chow in the CBC movie Jack Layton bio-pic Jack. Year of the Carnivore marked Sook-Yin Lee’s feature debut as a writer-director. Her upcoming movie, Octavio is Dead! a supernatural ghost story, stars Sarah Gadon, Raoul Trujillo, and Rosanna Arquette.

Charles Officer

 

Charles Officer’s filmmaking career began with a slate of award-winning short films that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. His debut feature Nurse.Fighter.Boy premiered at TIFF ’08 and garnered 10 Genie Nominations. His feature documentary debut, Mighty Jerome, won four 2011 Leo Awards and a 2012 Emmy Award for Best Historical Documentary. In 2012 Officer directed Stone Thrower: The Chuck Ealey Story which aired on TSN for the CFL’s 100th Anniversary. His TV-documentary, The Skin We’re In, premiered on CBC this March and he has recently completed directing a variety of episodic television, including Private Eyes and the CBC series 21 Thunder. His feature documentary Unarmed Verses premiered to major acclaim at Hot Docs 2017 and won the Best Canadian Feature Award. He is currently in production on Invisible Essence: Le Petit Prince, a cinematic meditation on Saint-Exupéry’s inspirational novella, and is in development on a feature drama, Akilla’s Escape, and a television mini-series adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s novel Son of a Smaller Hero.

Steven Page

 

A witty, articulate and mesmerizing speaker, singer/songwriter Steven Page is probably best known as a founding member of The Barenaked Ladies with whom he toured the globe and sold millions of albums. On his own, Steven continues his artistic evolution with a diverse array of solo projects. To that end, he has composed six Stratford Festival scores, collaborated and toured with Toronto’s innovative Art of Time ensemble and journeyed across North America as host of TV’s The Illegal Eater while continuing to write, release and perform his original music. In December 2016, Steven Page became a Chopped Canada Champion on a special celebrity edition of the show. Steven’s latest opus, Heal Thyself, Pt. I: Instinct, was released last year.

 

In 2011 – as a guest host on a CBC’s “The Current” Steven acknowledged his own struggles with depression. The response to Steven’s intelligent, honest and candid approach to the subject matter was overwhelmingly positive and since then, Steven has been in demand as a speaker on a variety of topics including mental health, literacy, food and wine and his life in the arts.

Annie Lalla

 

Specializing in love, sex & conflict resolution, Annie has created a suite of practical tools to resolve toxic patterns, increase romantic esteem, defuse conflict, assuage shame, blame & cultivate deep relationships that last a lifetime.

 

Annie has developed her signature method: ‘The Art of Fighting’. She sees transcending conflict as a crucial path towards developing intimacy.

 

All her studies in biology, philosophy, Buddhism, evolutionary psychology & NLP converge in her unique Love Coaching practice where she helps individuals build extraordinary connections that maximize freedom & minimize shame.

Jagger Gordon

 

Chef Jagger Gordon’s mission began in 2014 after he witnessed the copious amount of food going to waste following every catering event he hosted with his catering company, Jagger Gordon Catering. He saw a problem and knew there had to be a more efficient way of dealing with the food wastage issue. To test his theory, Jagger decided to open a pop up kitchen in the Trinity Bellwood Park, on Queen Street West in Toronto. Within three hours, he served over 300 meals to the community for free with food that would have otherwise been destined for the landfill. His theory was recognized by this simple test and his deep desire to feed those less fortunate became his vision and mission in life, hence Feed Families was born.

 

Feed Families started with one freezer placed on a private property and filled with frozen healthy meals which was made available for 10 families. Over a short period of time that one freezer turned into seven freezers and shortly thereafter, those 10 families turned into a significant amount of families and individuals. Within a few months they were producing over 12,000 meals. The change of name to Feed It Forward took place in 2015 because of Chef Jagger’s vision of the widespread need for a greater reach. His entrepreneurial spirit took shape and he started at the grassroots level, with a small army of dedicated volunteers, serving over 1200 people a hot meal during the Christmas of 2016. He then continued to offer hot and nutritious meals on the streets of Toronto every Monday night at Nathan Phillip’s Square. This carried on for months until he realized that one night per week was simply not enough.

 

Jagger came upon a unique opportunity to capture one of the shipping containers outside the Scadding Court Community Centre. On May 4, 2017, The Soup Bar was launched becoming Canada’s first pay-what-you-can-or-free restaurant. Soon he captured the hearts of many restauranteurs, farmers, growers, and bakeries who would donate food to his cause. And it was also at this time that he was graced with an incredible donation of a farm with 200 acres of land. This allowed them to grow 20,000 pounds of organic vegetables, which in turn were offered at an open air market, in front of The Soup Bar.

 

What is next for Chef Jagger and his Feed It Forward program?

 

Feed It Forward now rescues food from Ontario grocery stores, farmers, growers, bakeries, distributors, and restaurants weekly. Thousands of kilos of food that would have been destined to garbage bins and landfills is now being used to make delicious healthy soups, meals and snacks for those in need.
In June of 2018 the first of its kind, Pay What You Can Grocery Store, Bakery and Café was opened in Toronto. In addition, a 3 month long pilot project commenced in early spring providing college and university students access to healthy frozen meals, delivered to their doorsteps, for only a couple of dollars.

 

Chef Jagger is determined to change the Canadian laws on food wastage. $31 billion worth of edible food goes to waste in Canada annually! Feed It Forward has a website that allows all Canadians to sign a petition asking the Canadian government to make it mandatory that edible food be donated, just like France and Italy.

 

It takes a village.