CALM Awards

2023 Awards Judges

English writing categories

Chuka Ejeckam
Chuka Ejeckam is a writer and researcher based in Toronto. The son of Igbo immigrants to Canada, he was born and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His academic work has focused on domestic and global inequity and inequality, reparations drug policy, structural racism, and labour. He has been published in *The Globe and Mail, Macleans, rabble.ca , Canadian Diversity*, and he has contributed to multiple academic articles and book chapters. His graduate thesis, now being developed into a larger work, highlights and opposes the explicitly racist foundations of drug prohibition, and the means by which drug policy enforcement and the US-led War on Drugs have advanced Western, primarily US-based neoliberal capitalist and imperialist interests, creating incalculable harm in death, displacement, and desperation. Chuka has also written and spoken against police budgets and brutality, Canadian arms manufacturing and sales, and about the need for Western countries to pay reparations for colonisation and climate change, and to resettle climate refugees. Chuka previously worked in the labour movement in British Columbia.

French categories

Simon-Pierre Beaudet
Simon-Pierre Beaudet habite au Cégep Limoilou, où il a été vaguement étudiant au vingtième siècle, puis permanent de l’association étudiante, pour y finir comme professeur de littérature. Il s’intéresse à l’histoire de la contre-culture québécoise ; selon sa blonde, c’est un hippie, mais juste dans sa tête. On a pu le lire autrefois dans La conspiration dépressionniste et maintenant dans diverses publications chez Moult Éditions, où il a publié tous ses livres.

Online categories

Imani Busby
Imani Dominique Busby is an entrepreneurial and ambitious undergraduate student studying Creative Industries at Toronto Metropolitan University. Imani aspires to become an art lawyer and gallerist with the goal of supporting marginalized artists as they navigate the art industry. She is an independent curator and visual artist based in Toronto with a breadth of marketing, design, and business development experience. She is presently the Communications Coordinator for Black Lives Matter - Canada and Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism where she manages their external communications and website. Imani is also the Editor in Chief of StyleCircle - a critical fashion publication at TMU where she oversees strategic operations for the digital and print publication. With roots in creativity and entrepreneurship, Imani is passionate about representation and community building.

Design categories

Suze Morrison
Suze Morrison in a former Canadian politician who served as the Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament from 2018-2022. She is currently the Chief Engagement Officer for the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres. Throughout her career, she has primarily worked for Indigenous, political, and health care organizations leading communications and community relations. She lives in Toronto and competes in grassroots motorsports events on the weekends.

Broadcast categories

Craig Needles

Craig Needles has spent nearly 20 years as a journalist, working as a reporter, talk show host and podcaster. He currently hosts a podcast and offers news commentary for Blackburn Media radio stations. He's a big sports watcher and lives in London with his wife Stacey and children Charlotte and Peyton.