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Moyez G. Vassanji (1950- ), author and nuclear physicist, was born in Nairobi, Kenya and raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He began his studies at the University of Nairobi but left in 1970 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Vassanji later completed a Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He immigrated to Canada in 1978 to work at the Chalk River atomic power station in Ontario. Vassanji moved to Toronto in 1980 to work at the University of Toronto as a research associate and lecturer, and soon began writing fiction. He edited "A Meeting of Streams : South Asian Canadian Literature" in 1985. His first novel, "The Gunny Sack," was published in 1989, and was awarded the 1990 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first novel (Africa). That year, he and his wife, Nurjehan Aziz, founded "The Toronto South Asian Review," a journal devoted to South Asian Canadian writers. It was renamed "The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad" in 1993 to reflect the wider community of immigrant writers in Canada. Vassanji gave up his work as a nuclear physicist in 1989 to turn his full attention to writing. He is the author of several novels: "No New Land" (1990), "The Book of Secrets" (1993), "Amriika" (2000), "The In-between World of Vikram Lall" (2003), "The Assassin's Song" (2007), "The Magic of Saida" (2012), “Nostalgia” (2016), “A Delhi Obsession” (2019), and “Everything There Is" (2023). He is also the author of three collections of short stories - "Uhuru Street" (1990), "When She Was Queen" (2005), and “What We Are” (2021) - as well as two memoirs, "A Place Within: Rediscovering India" (2008), “And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa” (2014), and a biography of Mordecai Richler published by Penguin Canada in 2009 as part of its Exceptional Canadians Series. He is the first repeat winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, winning in its inaugural year for "The Book of Secrets" and later for "The In-between World of Vikram Lall," and was shortlisted for the prize for "The Assassin's Song." Vassanji was made a Member of the Order of Canada in October 2004 for his contributions to writing and the arts, and an honorary Doctor of Letters by York University in June 2005. "The In-between World of M.G. Vassanji," a television documentary about his life, was first broadcast in 2006.

The poet/scholar George Thaniel was born on 22 February 1938 in Trahila, Messinia, Greece. After WWII and the Civil War in Greece his family moved to Piraeus where George attended Ionidhios High School (1950-1956) where he also began learning English. During this time he also studied French and Latin at St. Paul's Roman Catholic School. His natural aptitude for languages was awarded with a trip to France from the Alliance Française in 1955. This trip and his love for the French Romanticism inspired him to pursue his calling as a poet in that style.

In 1956, Thaniel enrolled in the School of Philosophy of the University of Athens, graduating in 1962. His education was briefly interrupted (1960-1961) as he performed his required military service with the Greek Navy, where he served as a translator and teacher of English. After graduation, Thaniel taught briefly English at Greek high schools until he emigrated to Canada in 1964. There he taught French and Latin in various Canadian high schools in remote places in Ontario such as Sioux Lookout and Chapeau.

In 1967, Thaniel enrolled in the Classics graduate program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The title of his PhD dissertation was "Themes of Death in Roman Religion and Poetry." After completing his PhD in 1971, Thaniel was hired by the University of Toronto as a part-time instructor of Modern Greek in the Department of Classics. In 1972 he advanced to become the University's first full-time instructor of Modern Greek. In 1977 he received tenure and went on to become the University of Toronto's first and only professor of Modern Greek in 1987.

While on a trip to Greece, Thaniel died suddenly and unexpectedly in Athens' General hospital on 22 June 1991.

Consumers' Gas Company was established in Toronto in October, 1847, as a private company to bring gas to the city for the purpose of illuminating the streets. In 1879 the company's authority was extended to providing gas for indoor uses (heating, cooking, illumination). In 1847 the company served approximately 641 consumers: by 1923 the company was serving two hundred times as many consumers claiming that every house in Toronto made use of gas. In 1887 legislation was passed to regulate the price of gas in Toronto, with the City Auditor inspecting the company's books. Further civic involvement in the gas company commenced in 1904 when the City of Toronto purchased shares in the company and the Mayor became an ex-officio director.

George Papadatos is a Greek Canadian who lived in Toronto from 1969 to 1984. He was very active in organizing cultural activities on the Danforth and was co-owner of the Trojan Horse coffee house where a number of anti-junta activities took place. Alongside Fotis and Dimitris Stamatopoulos, he founded Eastminster Community Services in 1972, an organization that supported Greeks in their interactions with Canadian federal departments and agencies. Papadatos taught Greek language and culture courses at the University of Toronto Scarborough (then Scarborough College) between 1979 and 1984 when he returned to Greece. He was also a journalist and local community organizer who organized and promoted several music tours of Greek musicians, performers and poets who were invited to tour the United States and Canada by the Cultural Workshop of Toronto to raise awareness of local conditions in Greece. In 1979, Papadatos and Nancy White published "Ta Tragoudia tou Agona - Songs of Struggle," a collection of translated songs. A year later, he published "Anthologio Antistasiakis Technis," an edited collection of works produced by Greek artists during the 1940s. In recognition of his journalistic and publishing activities, he was awarded a Print Prize by the Canadian Ethnic Media Association. In 1984, he was awarded a metallic plate for his services as the Secretary of the Hellenic Athletic Federation of Ontario.

Theresa Burke is a Canadian producer, director, researcher and writer best known for her work for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) television program "The fifth estate.” Burke attended the University of Nantes, the University of Ottawa and the University of Alaska before obtaining an Honours BA in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. She worked as a director of public relations and corporate communications at Alliance Entertainment and as a director of marketing for Norstar Entertainment between 1987 and 1990. In 1994, Burke joined "The fifth estate" as a researcher and subsequently became one of the program's producers and directors. She has produced a wide variety of documentary programming for "The fifth estate", with a particular focus on prisoners and miscarriages of justice. Burke was a research associate for Julian Shur's book about Steven Truscott, "Until you are dead: Steven Truscott's long ride into history" (2001), which won the 2002 CAA Birks Family Foundation Award for Biography, and co-wrote "Who killed Ty Conn" (2001) with Linden MacIntyre. "His word against history," a "Fifth estate" documentary about Steven Truscott on which Burke worked extensively as a researcher and producer, was awarded the best investigative report of 2000 by the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Alfred (Ben) Wicks (1 Oct. 1926 - 10 Sept. 2000) was born in Southwark, a borough of London, England’s East End. After World War Two, he remained in London working odd jobs including a stint with the British Air Training Corp. and as a saxophone player before turning to a career as an illustrator. Wicks married Doreen Curtis (1935-2004), a nurse, in Bristol, England, on 31 May 1956.

Ben and Doreen Wicks moved to Calgary, Canada in 1957. Wicks had his first sale as a cartoonist in Canada to The Saturday Evening Post in 1962, and year later, started as a staff member for the Toronto Telegram. His cartoon strip, “The Outcasts,” a take on politics in Canada and the United States, was soon syndicated by over 50 newspapers. In 1967, Wicks was assigned to travel alongside a journalist to cover the Nigerian–Biafran War and its effects on the civilian population through cartoons and drawings. Wicks would continue his efforts in humanitarian work in Haiti, Sudan and other parts of Africa.

After the Toronto Telegram ceased operations in 1971, Wicks moved to the Toronto Star. His single frame cartoon, “Wicks,” was syndicated in 84 Canadian and over 100 American newspapers. Wicks was also a well-known Canadian television personality. He hosted several productions including “Ben Wicks” in the late 1970s that aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1990, Wicks founded the I.Can Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to children’s literacy around the world, and he illustrated several literacy booklets (Born to Read series) that reached millions of school age children across Canada.

Wicks published over 40 books and booklets over his career including Ben Wicks’ Canada (1976), Ben Wicks’ Women (1978), Ben Wicks’ Book of Losers (1979), Ben Wicks’ Etiquette (1981), Ben Wicks’ Dogs (1983), Mavis & Bill (1986), and Mavis & Bill Yes, Again! (1988). He also published non-fiction books including No Time to Wave Goodbye (1987), The Day they Took the Children (1988), Nell’s War (1990), Welcome Home (1991), Master of None: The Story of Me Life (1995), and Dawn of the Promised Land: The Creation of Israel (1997).

In 1986, Wicks was awarded membership into the Order of Canada, followed three years later by his wife, Doreen.

Ben Wicks died of cancer on 10 Sept. 2000.

Helen Lucas (artist) was born in 1931 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, to Greek parents, Eftihia and William Geatros. She studied at the Ontario College of Art (Toronto) from 1950-1954, and was Drawing and Painting Master at Sheridan College (Oakville, Ont.) from 1973-1979. Her early works were figurative pieces in black and white, and later works were colourful floral paintings. She has exhibited her art works widely in Canada, the United States, and Italy, published drawings and text in several publications, and was an active participant in Canadian Women studies projects. In 1991 York University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters and she received the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Her life was featured in an award-winning, hour-long documentary produced by Donna Davey that was shown at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1996. Lucas died on 27 November 2023.

Allan Robb Fleming was born in Toronto on 7 May 1929 to immigrant Scottish parents, Isabella Osborne Fleming and Allan Stevenson Fleming. His mother was a nurse and teacher; his father a switchman and later a clerk for Canadian National Railways. He studied commercial art at the Western Technical School until 1945, and was hired as an illustrator immediately on graduation into the mail order catalogue illustration department of T. Eaton Company. During this time he met Nancy Barbara Chisholm, whom he was married in 1951. After leaving Eaton's in 1947, Fleming worked as a layout artist with the Art Associates Studio and later as the art director of the advertising firm Aiken McCracken. He joined another advertising firm, Art and Design Service, in 1951, and worked with clients such as Ford, Helena Rubinstein, and Kaiser-Frazer until April 1953. Fleming started his own freelance practice at this time, beginning a relationship with Steve Barootes that included the design of print material and signage for Barootes' restaurant, The Fifth Avenue. He also attended a series of Typography Workshops at Cooper & Beatty Typesetters run by Carl Dair. This instruction formalised Fleming's fascination with the letterform, and he resolved to travel to Europe and England to study with master typographers and book designers. Allan and Nancy Fleming left for England in April 1953, where Allan worked as an art director for the advertising firm John Tait and Partners. He studied in London at the St Bride Printing Library, the British Library incunabula collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum National Art Library, as well as frequenting the most important typographers and type historians of the day. He was mentored by Beatrice Warde of the Monotype Corporation, Oliver Simon, Stanley Morison and others, and began to collect what would become a comprehensive reference library of books about typography, design, and book design. In London, Allan and Nancy met their lifelong friends, the poet Richard Outram and his wife to be, the artist Barbara Howard. On their return from London to Toronto in 1955, Fleming began working informally with Cooper & Beatty as a freelance designer and became head of the Typography Department of the Ontario College of Art, where until 1961 his teaching influenced a significant number of well-known graphic and editorial designers who emerged in the 1970s. In 1957 he was appointed Creative Director of Cooper & Beatty and his design and art direction work there during the following six years, informed by the study and mentoring he had followed in London, was of such a high calibre and so prolific that it was awarded numerous awards from professional associations such as the Toronto, Montreal and New York Art Directors' Clubs, Type Director's Club of New York, American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Aspen and Silvermine Design Conferences, and the Advertising Typographers' Association of New York. Fleming was well known in the United States as a Canadian graphic designer, and respected as a peer. During his time at Cooper & Beatty, he also organised a series of landmark exhibitions of international typographic designers. From 1963 to 1968 Fleming was Creative Director of the influential MacLaren Advertising firm while maintaining a busy freelance practice. Fleming's most significant contributions were to national identity and to the visual culture of Canada in the formative period of the 1960s. His logo design for Canadian National Railway was commissioned in 1959 and launched in 1960; it is still used today. Other logo designs for government and for important Canadian institutions in this formative period for the country are: Trent University (1964), Ontario Hydro (1965), National Design Council of the Department of Industry (1965), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1965), Hudson's Bay Company (1969), ETVO (now TVOntario, 1970), Gray Coach Lines (1971) and others. In 1973-74, while working with Burton Kramer Associates, he was involved in developing the project that led to rebranding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He worked on a number of important centennial projects during the mid 1960s, notably the award-winning book Canada: A Year of the Land for the National Film Board Still Photography Division. He was a jury member for the award of the design of Canada's centennial coinage, and worked closely with the competition's winner, Alex Colville, to create typographic elements for the commemorative coins. He designed the logo for Ontario's centennial project, the Ontario Science Centre, and a number of its early publications. He participated in the international design conference that took place at Expo '67, and was awarded the Centennial Medal by the government of Canada. In 1965, he was also awarded the Medal of the Royal Canadian Academy for "his distinguished contribution to the art of typographic design." Fleming also designed the first annual report for the Canada Council for the Arts in 1960, the street and shop signage for Upper Canada Village in 1961, lettering and silverware for Ron Thom's Massey College in 1963, a redesign of Maclean's magazine in 1963, electoral publications for the Liberal Party in 1965, the medal struck to commemorate the new Toronto City Hall in 1965 as well as its Hall of Memory and, for the Hudson's Bay Company anniversary celebrations in 1970, he produced a film directed by Christopher Chapman. In 1968 Fleming was commissioned by Postmaster General Eric Kierans to strike and lead a working committee on the design of Canada's postage stamps; he appointed, among others, artist Christopher Pratt and curator and arts administrator David Silcox. His "Report to the Canada Post Office on their philatelic product" became the new style guide for a renaissance in Canadian postage design that still forms the basis of stamp design in Canada. Fleming went on to art direct and design numerous stamps until his untimely demise from heart disease on 31 December 1977. He was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal just a few months before his death.

Leo Panitch was a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He was born 3 May 1945 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and received a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc.(Hons.) and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He was a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Carleton University between 1972 and 1984.

He was a Professor of Political Science at York University from 1984 until his retirement in 2016.. He was the Chair of the Department of Political Science at York from 1988-1994. He was the General Co-editor of State and Economic Life series, U. of T. Press, from 1979 to 1995 and the Co-founder and a Board Member of Studies in Political Economy. He is also the author of numerous articles and books dealing with political science including The End of Parliamentary Socialism (1997). He was a member of the Movement for an Independent and Socialist Canada, 1973-1975, the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, 1975-1984, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Committee of Socialist Studies, the Marxist Institute and the Royal Society of Canada. Panitch died in Toronto on 19 December 2020.

Barbara Turnbull, Toronto star reporter, advocate and disability activist, was born February 7, 1965 in Montreal, Quebec as the third born of five daughters. At the age of seven, she moved with her mother and four sisters to Mississauga, Ontario where she attended elementary and high school.

On September 23, 1983 Turnbull was working part time at a Becker’s convenience store in Mississauga when the store was robbed at gunpoint. Turnbull was shot in the neck and sustained a spinal cord injury which resulted in her becoming quadriplegic. The event became high profile news, and the media, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area, followed Turnbull’s recovery and the subsequent criminal trial for the men involved in the shooting, into 1985.

In the years after her injury, Turnbull took courses at the University of Toronto, and eventually moved to attend Arizona State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, graduating Magna Cum Laude and as the class valedictorian. Upon returning to Toronto in 1990, she was hired by the Toronto Star as a reporter, where she then worked for the next twenty-five years.

Turnbull became an outspoken and avid advocate for those with spinal cord injuries such as herself. This advocacy led to the founding of the Barbara Turnbull Foundation for Spinal Cord Research, and the creation of the Turnbull-Tator Award in Spinal Cord Injury and Concussion Research, alongside Dr. Charles Tator, one of Barbara’s original doctors at the time of her injury. The award aims to annually recognize outstanding publication by an independent researcher at a Canadian institution in the field of spinal chord and/or brain injury. Turnbull’s advocacy efforts extended to creating real change toward accessibility. In 1993, Turnbull filed a complaint with the Ontario Humans Rights Commission over the lack of accessibility in cinemas operated by Famous Players. (Four other complaints were made by Marilyn Chapman, Domenic Fragale, Ing Wong-Ward and Steven Macaulay.) In 2001, the court ruled in Turnbull’s favor and as a result Famous Players was required to make all their cinemas fully accessible, which resulted in a few downtown theatres being permanently closed.

Throughout her career, Turnbull was acknowledged by many organizations for her work and advocacy, including two honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Toronto and York University. Posthumously, she was awarded the Order of Canada.

Turnbull died in 2015 at the age of 50.

Deborah Barndt, educator, writer, activist and photographer, attended Otterbein College in Ohio, graduating in 1967 with a BA in Comprehensive Social Studies and French. She then studied at Michigan State University, completing her MA in Social Psychology in 1968. From 1970 to 1972, she taught as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey. She travelled to Lima, Peru, in 1976 to serve as resident sociologist for a visual communications workshop at the Universidad La Catholica. Barndt was a part-time faculty member in the Applied Social Science department at Concordia University in Montreal before completing her PhD in sociology from Michigan University in 1978. Her PhD dissertation was entitled “People Connecting with Structures: A Photographic and Contextual Exploration of the Conscientization Process in a Peruvian Literacy Program”. From 1977 to 1981, Barndt was a staff member in the participatory research group of the International Council for Adult Education, becoming its director for 1980-1981. During this time, Barndt also worked as an instructor for the Toronto Board of Education and Humber College’s Labour Studies Centre and its English in the Workplace program. She was a visiting professor in the “Women in Unusual Careers” programme at Denison University in Ohio in 1981 before working as a teacher training consultant for the Nicaraguan government’s Vice-Ministry of Adult Education between 1981 and 1983. In 1983, Barndt worked as a consultant at the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. She returned to Toronto to take the position of adjunct professor in the Department of Adult Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education until 1985, when she became the coordinator of Canadian issues at the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, a position she held until 1993. Between 1987 and 1990, Barndt was an instructor at the University of Toronto’s Regis College and Department of Sociology. In 1993, Barndt joined the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) at York University as an assistant professor, becoming an associate professor in 1999 and professor in 2004. At York, she founded the Community Arts Practice (CAP) program in 2005. She was a senior scholar at the Centre for Refugee Studies in 2008, and between 2012-2013 she served as the inaugural chair for social justice at the Coady International Institute and St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She retired from York University in 2014.

Barndt is the author of Education and Social Change: A Photographic Study of Peru (1980), Getting There: Producing Photo-stories with Immigrant Women (1982) (co-author), A New Weave: Popular Education in Canada and Central America (1985) (co-author), To Change This House: Popular Education under the Sandinistas (1991), Tangled Routes: Women, Work and Globalization on the Tomato Trail (2002), and Earth to Tables Legacies: Multimedia Food Conversations across Generations and Cultures (2022) (co-author). She is the editor of Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain (1999), Just Doing It: Popular Collective Action in the Americas (2002) (co-editor), Wild Fire: Art as Activism (2006), and VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas (2011).

Marilou McPhedran is a Canadian feminist lawyer, consultant and activist. Born and raised in Neepawa, Manitoba, McPhedran attended the University of Winnipeg from 1969 to 1972, where she was president of the University of Winnipeg Student Association. She then attended the University of Toronto in 1972-1973, graduating with a BA in 1973. That same year, she enrolled at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School and graduated with a LL.B. in 1976. In 1992, McPhedran was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Winnipeg. She completed a LL.M. degree in Comparative Constitutional Law at Osgoode Hall Law School in 2004. After completing her LL.B., McPhedran worked as counsel and human rights consultant for the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped from 1979 to 1981. During this period, she assisted with the Justin Clarke case and helped to organize the first National Conference on Law and the Handicapped. From 1981 to 1985, she was employed as health advocate and counsel for the City of Toronto, where she served as member of the Metro Toronto Task Force on Public Violence against Women and Children and as a coordinator of the Action Task Force on Discharged Psychiatric Patients. In 1981 and 1982, McPhedran was a volunteer member of and counsel to the Ad Hoc Committee of Canadian Women on the Constitution, a group that successfully drafted a gender equality clause for the Canadian Constitution of Rights and Freedoms.

McPhedran's other volunteer and activist work included serving as co-founder of the Charter of Rights Education Fund in 1982-1983 and co-founder of the Women's Legal Education Action Fund (LEAF) in 1985, for which she also served as chair of LEAF Foundation and chair of the LEAF's National Board of Directors. In 1984, she co-founded and later served as chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Action Committee on Violence against Women and Children (METRAC), the first non-government organization in Canada dedicated to research and advocacy to counter violence against women and children. McPhedran was a founding board member and manager of the Gerstein Centre in 1989, an organization helping discharged psychiatric patients. From 1990 to 1991, McPhedran served as chair of the College of Physician and Surgeons' Independent Task Force on Sexual Abuse of Patients and, in 2000, she chaired a second task force on the same subject. She also worked as interim director of the Canadian Women's Foundation in 1990. Starting in 1988, McPhedran offered strategic counsel and legal consultancy under the name Law, Systems and Advocacy. Working as a consultant in the area of women's health, McPhedran held the position of corporate director of the City of Toronto's Healthy City office from 1991 to 1994 and for Women's College Hospital's Health Partnerships program from 1994 to 1996. She then served as a consultant for Friends of Women's College Hospital, Liberty Health, and Homewood Health Care between 1996 and 1998. From 2001 to 2003, McPhedran was executive coordinator of the National Network on Environments and Women's Health at York University.

In 1998, McPhedran became the founding director of the International Women's Rights Project (IWRP), located respectively at the Centre for Refugee Studies and the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. Her association with IWRP continued as co-director from 2003 to 2007, lasting through its 2003 relocation to the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. She was employed in 2004 as an international consultant for Cowater International, hired to conduct a study and prepare a final report about the work of the Asian Development Bank's RETA 6008: Gender and Governance Issues in Local Government project. From 2003 to 2005, McPhedran was a volunteer member of the Program Advisory Committee of the Canadian Firearms Program. In addition to her volunteer and consultancy work, McPhedran has also worked as a writer and educator. Based on her experiences chairing task forces on the sexual abuse of patients and other advocacy work, McPhedran co-authored a textbook with Wendy Sutton titled "Preventing sexual abuse of patients : a legal guide for health professionals." She also served two terms, in 1994 and 2000, as Planner-in-Residence at the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo, where, in 2000, she taught a course titled "Building healthy communities : local to global human rights." Made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1985 for her work with the Ad Hoc Committee on the Constitution, McPhedran was also awarded a Canada 125 Medal for community service in 1992 and the Woman of the Year award from the B'nai Brith in 1993. She was the Women's Law Association of Ontario's Woman of the Year in 1997. In 2002, she was awarded the Queen's Jubilee Medal, and she received the Governor General's Persons Case Medal in 2003. In January 2007, McPhedran became the Ariel F. Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan. From November 2007 to July 2008, she was the Chief Commissioner of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. She was the founding director of the Institute for International Women’s Rights at Global College at the University of Winnipeg from 2009 to 2016. McPhedran is currently a Canadian Senator, appointed under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government in 2016.

Dr. Inez Elliston was an educator, writer, policy consultant, and leader in community volunteerism. Born in Jamaica, Elliston acquired a Bachelor of Arts from the University of London/University of the West Indies in 1961. She subsequently received a Diploma in Education in 1961 from London University, a Masters of Education from Boston University, a Masters of Education from the University of Toronto in 1972 and her PhD, also from UofT, in 1976.

Elliston was the first coordinator of the Multiculturalism and Race Relations Committee for the Scarborough Board of Education. She was responsible for implementing 14 major policy recommendations, including multicultural training for staff and improved assessment of immigrant children in the school system.

She was Coordinator of the Adult Day School and Multicultural Centre 1978-1982. From 1986 to 1990 she was the vice principle of Continuing Education, From 1994 to 1996 she was an Education Officer in the Ministry of Education and Training. Elliston played key leadership roles in the Canadian Council of multicultural and Intercultural Education (CCMIE), Delta Kappa Gamma International Society for Key Women Educators, the Governing Council at University of Toronto, has sat on the Advisory Board and Faculty Council at OISE at the University of Toronto, and is involved in the Canadian Federation of University Women.

Elliston’s contributions to Canadian society and her local community have been acknowledged through awards including: a 15 Year Volunteer Service Award from the Ministry of Citizenship (1987), a citation for Citizenship from the Government of Canada (1989), an Outstanding Achievement Award from CCMIE (1990), and Outstanding Achievement Ward from the Jamaican Canadian Association (1996), the ACAA in 1996, and lifetime achievement awards from the Malvern Youth Club (2000), the John Hubbard Humanitarian Award (2001). She has also received public recognition of her contributions to the community from the City of Scarborough (1994) and the City of Markham (2002). She received the Order of Ontario in 2004.

An award for achievement in anti-racist and ethno-cultural equity was established in Elliston’s name by the Board of Scarborough in 1995.

Elliston was the author of Multiculturalism in Canada: issues and perspectives, Education in a changing society and Effective schooling for an increasingly diverse student population.

Archibald Alexander Alleyne was born in Toronto 7 January 1933. He taught himself how to play the drums and began his music career in 1953. Between 1955 and 1966 he worked as the house drummer at the club Town Tavern, in Toronto, where he accompanied some of the most successful jazz musicians of the 20th century. Following a 1967 car accident, Alleyne suspended his music career and became a restaurateur (The Underground Railroad Soul Food). He resumed his career in 1982, when he established a quartet with Frank Wright (vibraphone) Connie Maynard (piano) and Bill Best (bass). In 1988-1989, he toured with Oliver Jones, travelled to Cuba, Ireland, Spain, Egypt, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria, appearing in the NFB's Oliver Jones in Africa (1989).

In 2001, Alleyne created the Evolution of Jazz Ensemble (EOJ) which provided performance opportunities and mentorship to post-secondary African-Canadian musicians. He also established the Archie Alleyne Scholarship Fund in 2003 to provide bursaries to music students.

In 2000, Archie Alleyne and Doug Richardson created the hard-bop jazz band, Kollage. Kollage’s original lineup included Jeff King (saxophone), Chris Butcher (trombone), Alex Brown (trumpet), Stacie McGregor (piano), Artie Roth (bass) and Archie Alleyne (drums). Kollage disbanded in 2014. In 2015, the band was reestablished with Archie Alleyne Scholarship recipient and Evolution of Jazz Ensemble member, Isaiah Gibbons, as the percussionist.

Since 2011, Alleyne organized a series of live performances promoting Black entertainment history, known as the Syncopation Series. The program also included an accompanying photograph exhibit titled, Syncopation: Black Stories, which showcased the biographies of black artists in Canadian music history.

He was named to the Order of Canada in 2011 and received the Black Business and Professional Association's Harry Jerome Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015.

Alleyne completed writing his memoir, Colour Me Jazz: The Archie Alleyne Story, in 2005. The final book, which was co-authored by Sheldon Taylor, was released in 2015.

Mark William Philip Cann (physicist, teacher) was born on 2 September 1932 in Dalhousie, India and spent his early years in Kashmir before his family moved to England. He was educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire, and earned a Master's degree in physics from Clare College, University of Cambridge. Cann began his career at Rolls Royce, where he worked on the United Kingdom's first nuclear submarine. He and his young family emigrated to the United States in 1963, when he joined the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois as a research physicist. Cann was hired by York University in 1969 and worked with the Centre for Research in Experimental Space Science (CRESS), becoming an expert in synthetic spectroscopy. He died on 5 December 2021.

Alissa York was born in Athabasca, Alberta and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied English Literature at McGill University and the University of Victoria, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1993. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph in 2016. Her thesis, “How Do I look?: In Search of the Female Gaze,” was a work of creative nonfiction blending memoir and interviews.

In 1999, York published a collection of short stories titled, Any Given Power (1999). She is the author of four novels, Mercy (2003), Effigy (2007), Fauna (2010), The Naturalist (2016), and Far Cry (2023).

Her novel, Effigy, was short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and her short stories have won the Journey Prize and Bronwen Wallace Award.

York’s writing process involves a year of research where she gathers notes, writes character sketches, and arranges her notes. She then writes her novels' scenes in long-form from the perspective of every character. She cuts up the script into pieces and arranges it on her kitchen floor in various orders, then tapes the pieces to create scrolls or "assemblies." She repeats the process until she finds an arrangement which will constitute the order of the final book. The end result is a narrative form in her novels in which the point of view shifts constantly.

York lives in Toronto with her husband, the artist Clive Holden.

Johanna Heather Stuckey, educator and author, was born and largely educated in Canada. She also attended Yale University, receiving a PhD in 1965. She joined the staff of York University in 1964 and has served in administrative positions as advisor to the president on the status of women (1981-1985), chair of the Senate Task Force on the Status of Women (1972-1975), co-ordinator of the Women's Studies Programme (1986-1989), chair of the Division of Humanities (1974-1979), acting master of Founders College (1972-1973) and as vice-chair, York University Faculty Association (1973-1974). Stuckey died on 15 February 2024.

Celia Haig-Brown is a Euro-Canadian ethnographer, researcher, professor, and university administrator based at York University. She is best known for her research working with former students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, updated in 2022 with Indigenous collaborators and published as "Tsqelmucwílc: The Kamloops Indian Residential School, Resistance and a Reckoning." Her research and scholarship focuses on the indigenization of education in the Canadian context and interrelations between Euro-Canadian and Indigenous Haig-Brown has also directed and co-produced film documentaries, including Peq'ilc: Coming Home (2011), Cowboys, Indians and Education: Regenerating Secwepemc Culture (2012), and Listen to the Land (2018). Her most recent project, Rodeo Women: Behind the Scenes, a documentary on the role women play in the rodeo circuit.

Haig-Brown completed a BA in Zoology and English at the University of British Columbia in 1968. She completed her teaching certificate (Science and English) in 1970 at the University of British Columbia. She later completed a MA in Curriculum and Instruction in 1986, writing a thesis "Invasion and Resistance: Surviving the Kamloops Indian Residential School" which would later form the basis for her 1988 monograph "Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School." Her PhD in Social Foundations of Educational Policy from UBC was completed in 1991. Her thesis, "Taking Control: Power and Contradiction in First Nations Adult Education" would later form the basis for a 1995 monograph published by UBC Press.

She served as a researcher, curriculum developer and instructor in several educational programs tied to Indigenous education and adult learning facilities in British Columbia before joining the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in 1990. She taught various courses on feminist pedagogical practices, educational theory and practice, social issues in education, and gender equity in teacher education. She later joined York University in 1997 and taught graduate courses in the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, and the School of Women's Studies in the area of feminist research methods, decolonization, indigenization of school curriculum, Indigenous pedagogies, land-based pedagogy; and the Indian Residential Schools and the impact of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and undergraduate courses on the foundations of education and models for education.

Beginning in about 2007, Haig-Brown shifted into roles in university administration, university governance, and research ethics. She served on York University's Senate, chairing from 2009-2010. She served as a member of numerous committees related to research ethics, and York's' Indigenous Research Ethics Board. From 2013-2015, she served a three year term as Associate Dean, Research and Professional Learning within the Faculty of Education. From 2015-2020, Haig-Brown served a five-year term as Associate Vice-President Research for the university.

Beginning in the early 2000s, Haig-Brown began developing her research outputs as documentary films, many in partnership with her niece Helen Haig-Brown. In 2008 she produced and co-directed with Helen Haig-Brown "Pelq'ilc: Coming Home", a film focusing on the place of education in renewing Indigenous culture and tradition. The piece focuses on the children and grandchildren of residential school survivors first interviewed by Haig-Brown for her MA thesis.

In 2012 she produced and co-directed with Helen Haig-Brown "Cowboys, Indians and Education: Regenerating Secwepemc Culture" which again focused on the experience of children and grandchildren of former Kamloops Indian Residential School students working on traditional knowledge revitalization efforts.

In 2018 she produced and directed "Listen to the Land" a documentary focusing on the experience of members of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach and their complex relationship with the land and contemporary economic realities of mining exploration in the territory.

Haig-Brown was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2022. She retired from York University in January 2024.

Hersh Zeifman was born in Toronto on 11 June 1944. Zeifman received his BA English in 1966, followed in 1967 by a MA English, both from the University of Toronto. He attended the University of Birmingham, England, graduating in 1961 with a PhD in drama and theatre arts. His dissertation is titled “Religious thought and imagery in the plays of Samuel Beckett.”

Zeifman’s teaching career started in 1966 with fellow positions at Scarborough College and University College, University of Toronto. His career in theatre arts with York University began in 1971. Zeifman’s tenure at York University included visiting assistant professor (1971-1974), assistant professor (1974-1979), associate professor (1979-1999), professor (2000-2008), and professor emeritus and senior scholar (2008-). He was the first professor at York University to teach Canadian drama beginning in the mid-1990s.

Zeifman has an extensive publishing career including as editor of “David Hare: a casebook” (1994), and co-editor of “Contemporary British drama, 1970-90: essays from ‘Modern Drama.’” (1993). He was co-editor of “Modern drama,” a journal focused on dramatic literature published by the University of Toronto Press, from 1989-1995 and editor for several special issues thereafter. Zeifman served on several executive and editorial boards including The Harold Pinter Society, The Pinter Review, and the Samuel Becket Society. Hersh Zeifman lives in Toronto.

“The Métis Fiddler Quartet is a bilingual family ensemble based in Toronto that performs traditional Métis fiddle music all over Ontario.” https://www.metisnation.org/news/fiddlers/ (See also http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/8thfire/2012/01/metis-fiddler-quartet.html.)

Sherry Lawson is an Indigenous author, born at the Rama Reserve in Orilla, Ontario by an Anishinabe father and Algonquian mother. Lawson's work is focused on leaving a record for her children and grandchildren, describing her upbringing and the racism that she has faced. Sherry Lawson was named Orilla Citizen of the Year in 2013 and has served as a Justice of the Peace. http://www.sherrylawson.ca/about

Priscila Uppal was born in Ottawa in 1974. She was a poet, novelist and professor of creative writing at York University. She completed a double honours B.A. in English and Creative Writing and a PhD in English Literature at York University in 1997 and 2002, respectively, and an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1998. She published nine collections of poetry including 'Ontological Necessities' (2006) (shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize), 'Traumatology' (2010) and 'Successful Tragedies: Poems 1998-2010' (2010). Her work has appeared in national and international magazines. Her first novel, 'The Divine Economy of Salvation,' and the anthology 'Uncommon Ground : A Celebration of Matt Cohen,' which she co-edited with Graeme Gibson, Dennis Lee and Wayne Grady, were both published in 2002. Uppal's second novel, 'To Whom it May Concern,' was published in 2009, followed by 'Cover Before Striking,' published in 2015. Her non-fiction books are 'We Are What We Mourn' (2009) and 'Projection' (2013). Her play, 'What Linda Said,' was first performed at the SummerWorks Performance Festival in August 2017, and poems performed in the play were published by Gap Riot Press as a chapbook. Uppal also edited several collected works including 'The Exile Book of Poetry in Translation: Twenty Canadian Poets Take on the World' (2009), 'The Exile Book of Canadian Sports Stories' (2010), and The Best Canadian Poetry in English' (2011). She was the first poet-in-residence for the Rogers Cup Tennis Tournament (2011) and Olympic poet-in-residence at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2012 London Summer Games. Uppal died in Toronto on September 5, 2018.

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was an American middleweight boxer who, alongside New Jersey resident John Artis, was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a triple homicide.

In the early morning of June 17, 1966, two men entered the Lafayette Bar & Grill in Paterson, New Jersey and opened fire, killing two and injuring two others, one of whom would later die of their injuries. All victims were white, and according to witness testimony, the shooters were Black.

The same night, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis were driving home from a club when they were pulled over by police on two separate occasions. On the second, they were taken in by police and interrogated about the crime for 17 hours before being released. They were eventually indicted on three charges of first-degree murder, and their first joint trial began in April 1967.

While there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime, they were arrested based on the witness testimony of Alfred Bello, who claimed he saw Carter and Artis at the scene of the crime, and of Patricia Valentine, who lived above the Lafayette Bar, heard the shooting take place, and claimed that she saw two Black men jump into a white car which was said to match the description of Rubin Carter’s car. Carter and Artis were sentenced to life in prison for the deaths at the Lafayette Bar.

In 1974, Alfred Bello and Arthur Bradley would recant their testimony, which set in motion a series of events that led to a second trial in 1976. Bello would later retract this recantation. The second trial in 1976 brought forth the theory of racial revenge, where the prosecution argued that the crime committed by Carter and Artis was a form of a racial revenge — on the same day as the shooting at the Lafayette bar, a Black bartender was killed by a white gunman. The second trial also resulted in a life sentence for both Carter and Artis.

In the early 1980s, a young man named Lesra Martin, born in Brooklyn and living in a commune in Toronto to attend school, read Carter’s book The Sixteenth Round: from Number 1 Contender to #45472 (1974) and shared it with members of the commune he lived with. Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton were among this group.

Inspired by Carter’s story, Chaiton, Swinton, and others in the commune moved to New Jersey to work on Carter’s case. They compiled material from the past two trials and assisted Carter’s attorneys with filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a report made to the court in the event of an unlawful detention or imprisonment with the goal being to determine whether a detention is lawful). In November 1985, it was determined by Judge Lee Sarokin that Carter was wrongfully convicted, and he was released. John Artis had already been released from prison, having served his sentences concurrently. His name was also cleared with the grant of the writ of habeas corpus.

Judge Sarokin would note that Carter’s verdict was based upon “racism rather than reason and concealment rather than disclosure.” The material collected by “the Canadians” (as they were referred to in Chaiton and Swinton's book, Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter) forms the Rubin “Hurricane” Carter collection and includes their investigative and legal notes.

After his release, Carter moved to Toronto, Ontario with Chaiton and Swinton. Carter began work to prove the innocence of other wrongly convicted individuals in Canada. He co-founded (along with Chaiton, Swinton, and several lawyers) the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (now known as Innocence Canada), serving for over a decade as their Executive Director until 2005. His activism led to Carter receiving a honorary Doctor of Laws degree from York University in October 2005. Carter died of cancer in 2014; John Artis cared for him during the final weeks of his life.

Toyomasa Fuse (1931-2019), author and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Suicide Studies at York University, was one of Canada’s foremost experts in the study of suicide; the sociocultural factors that contribute to it, and how to prevent it. Born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, Fuse earned a scholarship from the United States Occupational Forces, which allowed him to attend Missouri Valley College in 1950, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1954. He earned both his Master of Sociology (1956) and Doctorate in Sociology (1961) at the University of California at Berkeley.

Fuse’s childhood experiences were shaped by the Second World War and the American occupation of Japan that followed. Growing up on Hokkaido during the 1930s and 1940s, when the island’s geopolitical circumstances created opportunities for cross-cultural contact and education, Fuse was exposed to different languages and cultures. His knowledge of eight languages, particularly of English, Italian and Spanish, allowed him to excel academically and professionally within the fields of sociology and comparative suicide studies.

During his employment at Cornell University, student activism and the Fuse’s support of the anti-Vietnam War movement in in the United States placed Fuse at a moral crossroads. Faced with worsening social unrest and worries that his young son would be drafted when he reached enlistment age, Fuse accepted a position at the L’Universite de Montreal in 1968 and moved the family to Canada. In the 1970s, the Fuse family moved to Toronto and Toyomasa Fuse began lecturing in Suicidology at York University. Fuse volunteered at suicide prevention centres in northern Metro Toronto. Retiring in 1997, Fuse continued to lecture in Suicidology as a Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow at York University. While continuing to write on suicide, Fuse pursued biographical and memoir writing in his later years.