Keynotes

Edward Greenspon
Edward Greenspon
President and CEO of the Public Policy Forum, a non-profit Canadian thinktank, worked as Editor-in-Chief of the Globe & Mail and in numerous prominent media roles, over the past 30 years. In 2018 he co-authored, with Taylor Owen, the report Democracy Divided: Countering Disinformation and Hate in the Digital Public Sphere. Democracy Divided offers policy options that respond to the rise of digital platforms to sustain Canadian media and communications systems. Under Greenspon, the Public Policy Forum has produced a number of important studies; its current Digital Democracy project is studying the Canadian media ecosystem leading up to the 2019 federal election, with the goal of setting out policy options; and its Shattered Mirror project examined the state of the Canadian news media in light of the rise of online platforms.

Jesse Wente
Jesse Wente
He is a sought-after Ojibwe broadcaster, curator, producer, activist and public speaker. He's been a columnist covering film and culture on CBC Radio's Metro Morning for 21 years and is also culture columnist for CBC Radio’s Unreserved. He has programmed for film festivals including Reel World, ImagineNative and TIFF and is currently Head of TIFF Cinematheque, overseeing TIFF’s historical film program. Jesse has curated retrospectives on Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michael Mann and Kelly Reichardt. In 2012 he curated the world’s largest retrospective of Indigenous films, titled First Peoples Cinema: 1500 Nations, One Tradition and its accompanying gallery exhibition, Home on Native Land. He is currently producing his first film, a screen adaptation of Thomas King’s best-selling book, The Inconvenient Indian. An outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights and First Nations, Metis and Inuit art, he has spoken at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Canadian Arts Summit, CMPA’s Prime Time and numerous Universities and Colleges. Jesse currently serves on the board of directors for both the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Jesse lives in Etobicoke with his wife and two children.

Sharon McGowan
Sharon McGowan
She is a founding member and past president of Women in Film and Television Vancouver and serves on the board of directors as Co-Chair of the Advocacy Committee. Her advocacy work has included decades of analysis and lobbying of Canadian film and television funding agencies, regulators, and unions to increase gender equity and diversity. Greenspon, Wente, and McGowan will participate in a keynote panel addressing the question, “How can Canadian media systems respond simultaneously to the challenge of digital platforms and to calls for a greater diversity of on-screen and off-screen voices?”

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