Gerry "The Big Bear" Barrett is a proud Ojibway, originally from the Saugeen First Nation in southern Ontario. A radio and television personality, an award-winning writer, stand-up comedian and an Elvis Presley Tribute Artist, Gerry is also currently the morning host on Manitoba's Aboriginal Radio Network, NCI-FM.

His writing credits include writer/producer of The Big Bear Comedy Show for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. He also wrote "The White Picket Fence," an award-winning non-fiction piece for the Winnipeg Free Press/Canadian Authors Association writing contest, and has picked up several writing awards for radio advertising campaigns. Gerry is working on several movie projects, including one about Christmas and a native American legend. He holds an Honours degree from the Niagara College of Applied Arts and Technology for Radio/TV/Film.

Gerry is married to his high school sweetheart and they currently reside in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

From carpenter to songwriter - Since leaving construction and recording Torn Screen Door in 1999 Scottish-born Canadian, David Francey is recognized as one of today's finest singer-songwriters. He earned three JUNOs (Canada's top music award) in less than 5 years. Francey also recently had the honour of receiving the prestigious SOCAN Folk Music Award. He tours worldwide and artists from all over the globe have recorded his songs.

David has been an integral part of CBC's Hockey Day In Canada. His song "Skating Rink" is used as the theme song and throughout the broadcast. He also suits up to play goaltender in the annual CBC pickup game.

"One of Canada's outstanding poets, songwriters, storytellers. That's David Francey with a lovely little tribute to tonight."
-- Ron MacLean, CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. November 22/03 Following the Canadian Heritage Classic Hockey Game

"Francey has made a reputation for himself as one of Canada's most revered folk poets and singers... [His songs] are small and beautifully crafted pieces of work that have made Francey both a folk festival favourite and something of a latter-day Canadian poet laureate."
-- Greg Quill, The Toronto Star

www.davidfrancey.com

Daria Salamon entered a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" writing contest in her local newspaper when she was twenty-seven. She won. It was her first published piece.

This precipitated a lifelong writing addiction. She pitched story ideas to the Winnipeg Free Press and became a regular contributor, writing about her experiences learning to surf in Malibu, her prairie girl perspective of Cannes Film Festival parties and flying to Ghana to help build a school. Daria has also contributed to The Globe and Mail, Prairie Fire Magazine and Uptown Magazine.

While doing all of this freelance work, Daria was also toiling away on her first novel late at night . She published her best-selling comic novel The Prairie Bridesmaid (which is sold with a downloadable soundtrack) in 2008. It won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book and was shortlisted for several other writing awards. The Prairie Bridesmaid is a popular book club selection.

Daria lives in Winnipeg with her ten month old, three year old and forty-two year old. She is at work on her second novel.

Arlene Dickinson is one of Canada's most renowned independent marketing communications entrepreneurs and one of the stars and judges on CBC Television's hit reality show Dragons' Den.

After becoming a partner in Venture Communications in 1988, she became sole owner in 1998. She has grown the company into a strategic and creative powerhouse for a blue-chip client list, which includes Toyota (Prairies), Unilever, EnCana, Travel Alberta, Mayo Clinic, LCBO, Western Canada Lotteries, and Forzani Group Ltd.

Arlene is a fervent believer that marketing's purpose is to deliver business results. She is well known for pioneering how marketing can be accountable to delivering on clients' business goals.

Her accomplishments, vision and leadership have been recognized with a number of honours and awards including PROFIT and Chatelaine magazine's TOP 100 Women Business Owners and Canada's Most Powerful Women Top 100.

Arlene enjoys travelling and relaxing with a good book. She has also been known to run the occasional half marathon, which is likely the only time she isn't on her Blackberry. Follow her on Twitter!

Brandon has many film and television appearances to his credit, most notably as the mischievous Reverend Thorne on CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie, and as the charmingly sociopathic Clark Claxton III, on Billable Hours which aired on the Showcase network.

As a writer, Brandon and his brother Kurt (collectively known as the Rumoli Bros.) won a Canadian Comedy Award for their controversial 2006 theatrical production of SARSical: The Musical About a Real Showstopper, their satirical take on the Toronto SARS crisis. Sarsical was nominated for 3 Dora Awards, walking away with the prize for Best Musical Score. They followed that up with their lampooning of Al Gore's climate change crusade with An Inconvenient Musical, which was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award and won another Dora Award for Best Score.

Currently, Brandon and his brother are developing several projects for TV and Film and are writing on an animated series for YTV.

He is the graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

She wanted to study journalism, but Toronto-born Lisa Ray ended up going in another direction when she took a trip to India at the age of 16 and got discovered by one of India's leading fashion magazines. She ended up on the magazine cover, and the Times of India named her one of the 10 most beautiful women of the millennia. An overnight sensation, she made her much-anticipated acting debut in 2001 in the film, Kasoor. A year later, she had a leading role in Deepa Mehta's film Bollywood/Hollywood, followed by Mehta's controversial, Oscar-nominated Water, for which she earned the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Lisa Ray's most recent movies are Cooking With Stella, co-starring Don McKellar and directed by Dilip Mehta, and the 'dramedy' Defendor, directed by Peter Stebbings and co-starring Woody Harrelson,

Ray has also appeared on television, co-hosting the Genies, The Giller Prize awards show and, most recently, two episodes of the upcoming 'Great Canadian Book Club' series for Bravo.

In 2009, Ray chose to make public that she had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma. She started a blog, lisaraniray.wordpress.com to share her experiences of life with cancer. The outpouring of support was immediate and overwhelming. Her forthrightness and humour in navigating the difficult illness earned her the Voice Achievers Award 2009. Ray also went on to raise funds for the establishment of the first research chair for multiple myeloma at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

I am currently, and have been for 26 years, the lead singer and co-writer for Spirit of the West. The band has been my home, family, creative outlet and travel companion through the UK, USA, Canada and Europe. (You can visit us at sotw.ca.)

I have two solo albums. Acoustic Kitty came out in 2001 under the name John Mann on the Nettwerk label and December Looms came out in December 2006 under the name Mister Mann. Many of my favourite songs and albums feature individuals singing solo with an acoustic guitar or little accompaniment. Bright Eyes, The Decembrists, Eef Barzelay, Wilco. The songs they sing with the least clutter are often their most immediate songs to me. December Looms, my new record, is getting me naked.

I am also an actor. I studied at Studio 58 in Vancouver in the early 80's, gave up the thought of it when I joined the band and then dove back into it eight years ago. My theatre credits include: Of Mice and Men at the Vancouver Playhouse (I played Witt, one of the hired hands, and I created the soundscape); The Three Penny Opera with the Vancouver Opera (I played Macheath); and Miss Saigon at The Arts Club Stanley Theatre. Film and TV credits include: Intelligence, the CBC drama (the CSIS agent James Mallaby); Dead Zone; Whistler; Battlestar Galactica; and Reefer Madness. Most recently, I just finished performing the lead in the Theatre Calgary and Vancouver Playhouse production of the theatrical piece, Beyond Eden.

Award-winning feature filmmaker Mina Shum began taking herself seriously as a writer at the age of fourteen, when she found herself on a one-hour bus commute to high school everyday. In order to pass the time, she started to keep a journal, musing philosophically on everything from The Clash's incisive lyrics (London Calling: calling who, why? And what if who they're calling doesn't return their call?) to copying down one innocent conversation about a cupcake recipe and trying to inject it with existential tension (Bake. Eat. Do it all over again. And again. )

These "early works" led to the creation of three feature films that she's also directed including Double Happiness. She's also written articles and lectures, songs and way too many love letters. Recently, she wrote a damning letter of complaint to a parking corporation for unjustly towing her car. The manager of complaints is now undergoing therapy and rethinking his entire life's purpose.

Mina Shum is currently getting her next feature film ready for production.

The Hollywood Reporter just named him one of the top 10 rising comedy talents from around the world, and Askmen.com dubbed him "Comedy's New Rock Star". Both are apt titles, considering that Sugar Sammy is touring the globe like a rock star, setting attendance records for sold-out shows in four languages - English, French, Punjabi and Hindi. International critics, from Canada to Dubai, are unanimous in their praise of his uproariously funny material.

A Canadian born to Indian parents in Montreal, Sugar Sammy draws on that background to tackle anything from arranged marriages to Quebec sovereignty to sex, drugs and modern-day relationships. He was the first-ever comedian to perform in English, French and Hindi at the Just for Laughs International Comedy Festival.

Sugar Sammy has won the Just For Laughs Comedy Award for "Discovery of the Festival" and garnered many other honours, including nominations for this year's M!M!M! Awards as well as the Canadian Comedy Award for "Funniest Make Comic." He has also headlined his own comedy special "Sugar Sammy Live in Concert" for HBO Canada in June 2009, opened for Dave Chapelle, and worked with the likes of George Lopez and Damon Wayans.