"Diversity our strength." It's the official motto of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, and is meant to represent the myriad of voices housed within its metropolitan barriers.

Vincent Churchill “Manny” McIntyre was born in Gagetown, New Brunswick and raised in Devon, now part of Fredericton.

In an era where people are becoming more conscious about what they put into and on their bodies, Inaygia is a make-up product line offering its clientele healthy ingredient choices.

“If kids can learn their ABCs and basic math, they can also learn financial literacy,” says Stacy Brown, who hosts a one-hour webinar series, "KiddieNomics", every Friday with her 10-year-old daughter Miki.

Amira Alamary is the owner/founder of Areej Artists Centre in Toronto.

Nine years ago, if you would’ve asked a young, talented, up-and-coming chef that he would own a successful restaurant specializing in Haitian Street Food in Toronto, he would probably shrug it off.

Thiana Richards (photo left) is the founder of TRPR & Events and co-founder of BLACQ. BLACQ (Born leading African-Canadian Queens) is a Scholarship Organization that assists African-Canadian women entering post-secondary education and or those who are already pursuing one. The scholarship launched this year. However, due to gathering restrictions, BLACQ fundraising events were put on hold and another vision was born. The Feast launched in October 2020, and it has done an amazing job assisting others during these hard times. I spoke to Thiana about the positive changes she and her business partner, Champagne Johnson (photo right), are making.

For over two decades, Marci Ien has been a fixture in the Canadian media scene. From covering the national news for CTV in Halifax, to anchoring the wildly successful 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, to being a political reporter at Queen’s Park, Ien has had a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist. 

It’s been a busy month for Annamie Paul. The bilingual lawyer from Toronto won the leadership race for the Green Party of Canada after 8 rounds of voting on October 3. Following the leadership race, she immediately turned her attention to the by-election in the Toronto-Centre riding. Paul subsequently called for both the Toronto-Centre and the York-Centre by-elections to be postponed as COVID-19 numbers surged. When Paul and I spoke on Thanksgiving Monday, she told me she did between 20-30 interviews a day during her first week as leader.

Nehassaiu deGannes expresses her artistic practice through the worlds of both theatre and poetry. A natural-born storyteller, she follows in the tradition of African griots who used ancestral memory, physical movement, vocal presence, and the power of language, to engage with their communities. Covid-19’s far-reaching impact has included a gutting of the global arts community, and its impact on the theatre world has been no less demoralizing.