Diverse group includes The Simpsons co-producer
Florence Loyie, Edmonton Journal
January 23, 2010
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What do a Canadian comedic actor, the chancellor of the University of Alberta, an Inuit Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and the writer and coexecutive producer of The Simpsons have in common?
They are all part of the 2010 Edmonton Speakers Series being put on by three local non-profit social agencies, all celebrating milestone anniversaries this year.
The Edmonton Social Planning Council, 70, the Edmonton Community Foundation, 20, and E4C, 40, first partnered last October to bring Canadian politician, author, diplomat and humanitarian Stephen Lewis to Edmonton for a sold-out speaking engagement.
The agencies' collaboration continues next month with Zaib Shaikh, star of CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie, a television sitcom about a small but diverse group of Muslims and their neighbours living in the fictional town of Mercy, Sask.
In April, the series will feature Joel Cohen, writer and co-executive producer of the long-running animated series The Simpsons. He will be followed in April by Linda Hughes, University of Alberta chancellor and former publisher of the Edmonton Journal. The series will wrap in September with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Inuit leader, environmental activist and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
"We think it is a pretty strong collection of speakers," Martin Garber-Conrad, CEO of the Edmonton Community Foundation said Wednesday. "We are trying to find people who are a little out of the mainstream, a little different."
While all three agencies are celebrating their past, they want the speakers series to reflect on the "future of community." Each speaker will draw on his or her experiences to discuss the idea of community, locally and also in the global sense, Garber-Conrad said.
"We thought of Zaib in terms of the multicultural and diversity dimension. We thought of Joel because The Simpsons has become such an important institution, beyond pop culture even.
"I think (the characters) are part of the real North American culture. They are admittedly odd, weird, bizarre and humorous, but the show has a real understanding of community and the different dimensions of it," he said.
Hughes will bring the series back to the reality of the local community. She will speak about what challenges housing and homelessness present to the whole community.
Watt-Cloutier will highlight the aboriginal component of community and also the importance of coexisting with the natural world, Garber-Conrad said.
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