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CBC/Radio-Canada reaffirms commitment to diversity and inclusion with new 2018-21 plan

From a media release:

CBC/Radio-Canada today unveiled its 2018-21 Diversity and Inclusion Plan. The new three-year plan sets out our strategy to better serve all Canadians by reflecting the full range of Canadian perspectives through our content, workplace culture and workforce. The Plan was launched at CBC/Radio-Canada’s Annual Public Meeting in Edmonton, where diversity and inclusion inspired this year’s conversation with Canadians on the importance of public broadcasting in today’s environment.

Building on past efforts and accomplishments, including those resulting from our previous 2015-2018 strategy, the new plan lays out the objectives for the coming years, provides workforce results for all our main business units, and details action plans by major services.

This plan also complements the Diversity and Inclusion section of the career page of our corporate website. Both convey the importance of diversity and inclusion and share the many things we’re doing to make our programming content even more relevant, foster greater inclusiveness in our workplace culture and ensure our workforce fully reflects Canada’s demographics.

About CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster. Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada’s trusted news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news, current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country. Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We also deliver content in Spanish, Arabic and Chinese, as well as both official languages, through Radio Canada International (RCI). We are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a digital world.

Diversity and inclusion fact sheet: Our progress so far
Below are highlights of some of the initiatives that have resulted from our ongoing efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in our content, workplace culture and workforce:

Content

  • CBC North has been serving Canadians across the territories and in Northern Quebec since 1958. It provides radio, television and online services to seven communities (Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Inuvik, Hay River, Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Kuujjuaq) in eight Indigenous languages. In addition to offering services on CBC North, our main networks and regional stations also showcase Indigenous news, issues, and culture.
  • Our award-winning Indigenous Unit is both a resource and a catalyst for more coverage across CBC/Radio-Canada. Recently expanded to more communities, it is helping us identify, recruit and develop Indigenous talent. It’s creating programs like Unreserved on CBC Radio, a powerful one-hour platform on our national radio network for Indigenous voices. The Legends Project digitizes traditional oral stories, legends and histories of Canada’s Inuit and First Nations Peoples from communities across the country. Our CBC Indigenous and Radio-Canada’s Espaces autochthones websites are ensuring more Canadians learn more about this country’s legacy and its future.
  • Since December 2017, Radio-Canada makes it compulsory for independent producers who submit a project to present a “diversity inclusion plan” with the objective of improving diversity in all its content.
  • CBC Films (CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund) is a narrative feature film fund that supports the production of English-language films from filmmakers and creators who bring diverse voices and stories that engage and reflect Canadians on the big and small screens. We look for projects that are written and directed by Canadian women, Indigenous persons, visible minorities, LGBTQ persons and persons with a disability.
  • For the past four years, Radio-Canada has been leading a TV industry working group aimed at increasing cultural diversity in French-language fiction. The group has implemented a series of actions such as the Auditions de la diversité, which provide performance training for actors from visible minority communities. The working group also supports coaching for young scriptwriters and tours high schools, in order to encourage diversity students to pursue careers in TV production.

Workplace culture

  • A number of internal initiatives foster greater inclusiveness in our workplace culture, including:
    • The Developing Emerging Leaders Program equips an annual cohort of 15 diverse employees with insights, tools and strategies to skillfully take their careers to the next level.
    • Employee Resource Groups (bring together employees who share common backgrounds and experiences, and provide mutual support and a greater sense of belonging, ex. women in technology and employees with physical or mental disabilities and their allies.)
    • Both CBC and Radio-Canada offer paid journalism internships to Indigenous recruits with partners such as the First Nations University of Canada, Nunavut Sivuniksavut/Algonquin College and the First Nations Education Council (FNEC). Radio-Canada also collaborates with the Kiuna Institution (the Quebec post-secondary Indigenous college) to offer an initiation to journalism for Indigenous students.
    • Our senior leaders learn about inclusive leadership and unconscious bias. That awareness fosters a culture of inclusiveness—one of our core values. Similar training is provided to other employees across the organization.

Workforce

  • While our focus is not on targets, we do still monitor to measure our performance and the impact of our initiatives.
    • The new diversity hires (Indigenous Peoples, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities) result for Q1 2018-2019 of 27.2% exceeded our target of 25.4%. This is our best first quarter result since we started measuring this index in 2015-2016.
    • We are the gender parity leader in the Canadian media industry with 48.9% women employed across CBC/Radio-Canada (+6.1% above the external labour force).
    • We reached our Strategy 2020 goal of 2.1% for Indigenous representation, meeting the external labour force availability and the hiring rate of 3.1% surpassed this goal between April 2017 and March 2018.
    • Between April 2015 and 2018, we saw over 40% increases for both the number of members of visible minorities and persons with disabilities.
  • With a view to increasing the diversity of its News staff, Radio-Canada revamped its hiring process for journalists at the network and regional levels over the last year, and we have removed potential obstacles for diverse candidates in our general knowledge and language proficiency exams.
  • The candidates for the first-ever paid CBC Placements for Persons With Disabilities started in mid-September 2018 and a national launch is being considered if deemed successful.
  • We are the first Canadian media company to add gender and sexual diversity (i.e., LGBTQ+) to its voluntary workforce tracking metrics.
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Introducing the 2018 CFC Bell Media Prime Time TV writers

From a media release:

The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is delighted to announce the six new residents who will be joining the 2018 Bell Media Prime Time TV Program, presented in association with ABC Signature Studios, beginning Monday, September 24.

The program has attracted some of Canada’s best showrunners to lead the story room as its Executive Producer in Residence, including Dennis Heaton, Avrum Jacobson, Michael MacLennan, Graeme Manson, Karen Walton and Brad Wright. It helped develop smash-hit Emmy Award-winning series Orphan Black and most recently, the critically acclaimed series Travelers, which premieres its third season this fall.

This year’s residents are especially fortunate to work with in-demand CFC alumna and writer-producer, Alexandra Zarowny. Her work spans Degrassi: The Next Generation to Wynonna Earp, Murdoch Mysteries to Bellevue and Private Eyes. Zarowny is ready to come full circle: “It cannot be understated, the enormous impact that the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program had in my own creative awakening as a television writer and content creator. The tools and insight gleaned from my training at the CFC still firmly clasped in hand, along with 15 years of career experience, will now be passed on to a stunningly talented team of young writers who are, I’m sure, thrilled to begin this journey, but who also have no idea just how significantly their lives are about to take a sharp turn into unimaginable adventures. Buckle up, everyone! There be a new group of writers coming down the CFC pipeline. As much as this program will change their lives, there’s no doubt in my mind that these new voices emerging in the television landscape will change yours as well.”

This year’s six writers have credits in film, television, theatre, music videos, branded content digital projects, along with an exciting range of professional and life experience.

Meet the Bell Media Prime Time TV Residents:

  • Sophia Fabiilli is an award winning playwright, writer, actor and producer. Her play, The Philanderess, won the 2015 Second City Award for Best New Comedy and her co-created comedy-horror web series,Fatal Murder, is in development with Shaftesbury. Read full bio here.
  • Jessica Meya is a writer, community leader and co-founder of Working the Scene in Colour, a diversity initiative organizing live reads of original scenes written by writers of colour. Meya is a 2018 recipient of the Breakthrough Artist Award at The Toronto Screenwriting Conference. Read full bio here.
  • Michael Rinaldi is an actor and writer for theatre, television and film. His play, Toothpaste and Cigars (co-written with TJ Dawe), was adapted as Michael Dowse’s 2013 feature film, The F Word, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan and Adam Driver. Read full bio here.
  • Mackenzie Sinclair, originally from Edmonton, is a 2017 Toronto Screenwriting Conference’s Magee TV Diverse Screenwriters Award recipient, where he developed his half-hour dramedy series, Snowflake, under the mentorship of writer/director Pat Mills. Read full bio here.
  • Veronika Paz is an actor, playwright, director and television writer. She studied sketch writing at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade, trained as a performer at Pro Actor’s Lab in Toronto and Barrow Group Theatre in New York, and is a 2018 recipient of the Toronto Screenwriting Conference’s Al Magee Diverse Screenwriters Award. Read full bio here.
  • Heather Taylor is a writer, director and co-founder of the creative studio, Cereal Made, in New York, with writing credits that include: the feature The Last Thakur; the sci-fi web series Raptured, currently in development as a TV series; and the award-winning short Stitched. Read full bio here.

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Link: Unité 9 locks up Prix Gémeaux victory; District 31 takes Prix du public

From the Canadian Press:

Link: Unité 9 locks up Prix Gémeaux victory; District 31 takes Prix du public
Unité 9, a gritty show about a group of women in a Quebec prison, won the award for best year-long drama at the Prix Gémeaux gala Sunday night.

It was the fourth consecutive year the hugely popular show took the prize. Continue reading. 

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Gusto continues to sizzle with new original series Fresh Market Dinners

From a media release:

Gusto continues to deliver unique culinary adventures with its newest original series from Gusto Worldwide Media, FRESH MARKET DINNERS, premiering next Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 10 p.m. ET. The ten-episode, 30-minute series follows host Amanda Herrera as she explores regional farmer’s markets for local produce and artisanal products to use in fresh and flavourful dishes.

Travelling to each market in her retro teardrop trailer, Herrera creates wholesome dishes at her outdoor kitchen using the fresh ingredients she has sourced at local farmer’s markets. Each episode displays a different farmer’s market experience, featuring the diverse regional settings of various Ontario towns.

Herrera, a talented cook and caterer from the Ottawa region, is known for her love of incorporating locally-sourced ingredients into dishes that creatively reflect Canada’s diverse culture.

Gusto original series, FLOUR POWER, returns tonight with all-new episodes airing Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET. Host Jessica McGovern takes viewers on a playful, 30-minute retro trip of desserts, sharing her expertise on uncomplicated, at-home baking with delicious treats.

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Global greenlights new primetime medical drama Nurses

From a media release:

Adding to its acclaimed roster of Canadian original series, Global proudly announces new primetime medical drama Nurses (working title), set to premiere on the network in 2019. From independent studio Entertainment One (eOne), the 10×60 series is executive produced by Ilana Frank (Rookie Blue), of ICF Films and Vanessa Piazza (Dark Matter) of Piazza Entertainment, with Adam Pettle named as writer, showrunner, and executive producer, and Tassie Cameron serving as executive producer. The series follows four young nurses working on the frontlines of St. Jude’s hospital dedicating their lives to helping others, while figuring out how to help themselves.

Stationed in every tendril of a busy downtown trauma centre and thrust into frontline medical action, Nurses sees four recent graduates beginning their careers in a high-stakes hospital with pressure cooker training. Forming an inextricable bond, the nurses struggle to find a work-life balance that matches and counters the intensity of their new job. Their interaction with patients, relatives, and staff quickly leads them to the discovery that nursing isn’t just about biology, chemistry, and anatomy, it’s also about psychology, compassion, and romantic complications.

Nurses executive producer, Ilana Frank, appears today on the Corus Entertainment-sponsored panel, The Future of Scripted: Women in Power Tell All. Hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Toronto, the panel takes place during C21 Media’s Content Canada conference, a part of TIFF’s industry offering. With opening remarks from Corus’ Executive Vice President and COO, Barb Williams, and moderated by Divya Shahani, Entertainment Lawyer, Hall Webber LLP, the featured panelists are: Ilana Frank (Rookie Blue, Nurses), Sheila Hockin (Vikings), Tassie Cameron (Mary Kills People), Julia Sereny (Ransom), and Alex Zarowny (Private Eyes). For more information visit www.contentcanada.net.

This newly greenlit series comes on the heels of Global’s recent renewals for Ransom, Mary Kills People, Private Eyes, and Big Brother Canada.

Nurses is produced by ICF Films, in association with eOne and Corus Entertainment, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit.

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