The Hon. Jean Augustine was appointed as the first Fairness Commissioner for Ontario in March 2007. She cares passionately about education and the challenges faced by newcomers to the province. Ms. Augustine was born in Grenada and came to Canada in 1960. She attended the University of Toronto, where she earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Education degrees. She became an elementary school principal with the Metropolitan Separate School Board in Toronto. From 1988 until 1993, she was chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority.

Ms. Augustine was the first African-Canadian woman to be elected to the House of Commons. She was elected in the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 1993 and sat in Parliament until 2006. During this time, she served as Minister of State for multiculturalism and the status of women, sat on several standing committees, and was a Deputy Speaker. She also played a major role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. She has shared her expertise and enthusiasm with others as a member of several community boards, including those of York University, the Hospital for Sick Children, the Donwood Institute and Harbourfront Corporation. She is a former national president of the Congress of Black Women of Canada. Every year, she makes a better future for young women through the Jean Augustine Scholarship, a fund that helps single mothers attend George Brown College and Centennial College in Toronto.

In 2007, she was chair of the Ontario Bicentenary Commemorative Committee on the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Ms. Augustine has donated her archival and parliamentary materials to York University’s Faculty of Education, thus creating the opportunity to establish an innovative academic position, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education in the New Urban Environment.
She has been honoured by many organizations for her leadership and community involvement and has been awarded Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees by the University of Toronto, the University of Guelph and McGill University.

Austin Chesterfield Clarke was born in Barbados in 1934 and immigrated to Canada to attend the University of Toronto in 1955. He quickly became a leader of the civil rights movement in Toronto. In his work from 1965-73 as a journalist and broadcaster covering social issues, he produced documentaries and interviews with artists and leaders of the civil rights movement. From 1968-74 Clarke served as visiting professor at Yale, Brandeis, Williams, Wellesley, Duke, and the universities of Texas and Indiana. He assisted in setting up Black Studies programs at Yale and Harvard. In 1974 Clarke became cultural attaché of the Barbadian Embassy in Washington, and from 1975-77 he served as general manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados. From 1973-6 he served as advisor to the Prime Minister of Barbados and from 1989-94 he was a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Austin Clarke has been Writer-in-Residence at Massey College, University of Toronto, and at the Toronto Public Library.

Culminating with the international success of The Polished Hoe in 2002, Austin Clarke has published ten novels, six short-story collections, and three memoirs in the United States, England, Canada, Australia, and Holland since 1964. Storm of Fortune, the second novel in his Toronto Trilogy about the lives of Barbadian immigrants, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award in 1973. The Origin of Waves won the Rogers Communications Writers’ Development Trust Prize for Fiction in 1997. In 1999 his ninth novel, The Question, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. In 2003 he had a private audience with Queen Elizabeth in honour of his Commonwealth Prize for his tenth novel, The Polished Hoe, which in 2004 was also a finalist for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award.

In 1992 Austin Clarke was honored with a Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. In 1997, Frontier College in Toronto also granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998 he was invested with the Order of Canada, and since then he has received four honorary doctorates. In 1999 he received the Martin Luther King Junior Award for Excellence in Writing.

Dr. Ho Ping Kong is a graduate of the University of the West Indies (1965). He is also a graduate of St. George’s College high school in Kingston, Jamaica and a member of the school’s Hall of Fame. The Globe & Mail describes him as: “As brilliant as House…But Nicer.” Colleagues and friends describe Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong as a truly “renaissance man”. He walks with great humility, a calm and quiet demeanor and a genuine care for everyone. In his role as teacher and mentor, he has, and continues to be an exemplary example to hundreds in the field of medicine, many of whom have become top in their field, in Canada and the Caribbean. Some of his core work includes the advancement of research in sickle cell anemia; renal and heart failure; and other aspects of internal medicine.
Dr. Ho Ping Kong has an extensive career as a practicing consultant physician and teacher with important leadership roles in medical education and program development at the local, provincial and national levels. Dr. Ho Ping Kong founded and became the first Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in the McGill system from 1981 to 1984, in Montreal.

In Toronto he has conducted similar seminal activities at Toronto Western Hospital, The Toronto Hospital, and University Health Network as well as centrally at the University departmental level. Through his sustained innovative work at these institutions, he has established general internal medicine as a national academic force. Dr. Ho Ping Kong was appointed Chair of the Section of Medical Education at the Royal College of Physicians Annual Meeting in 1984 and Chair of the Royal College Nucleus Committee for Internal Medicine in 1986, with re-election in 1989.

In 1990 he was promoted to rank of full Professor by the University of Toronto and was appointed Associate Physician-in-Chief of The Toronto Hospital in 1992. About a decade ago Dr. Ho Ping Kong initiated the clinical fellowship program for training in sub specialties of internal medicine, for Caribbean trainees at the University Health Network. The program has grown to almost 20 consultant physicians…the majority of whom are back in the Caribbean practicing and teaching. In 2004 Dr. Ho Ping Kong became the inaugural holder of the Chang endowed chair in Internal Medicine teaching at UHN and University of Toronto. In his 40 years of teaching, Dr. Ho Ping Kong has received numerous awards. Most prestigious of these are the Dr. Mary E. Hollington Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Final Medical Year in 1989 and the Aikins Award for Individual Excellence in Undergraduate Clinical Teaching in 1990. Dr. Ho Ping Kong was awarded the most prestigious 3M Teaching Excellence Award of Canada in 1999, which recognized his role as an accomplished medical teacher, and placed him at the top of the teaching pyramid across all university disciplines throughout the nation. In 2003 he was awarded the distinguished lifetime Osler Award of excellence by the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine for practice and teaching of general internal medicine.

In 2008 the Jamaican government honoured him with the community service award for health. In the same year, the association of consultant physicians of Jamaica recognized him for his outstanding contribution to post graduate medical education in the Caribbean.

More recently the University Health Network recognized Dr. Ho Ping Kong’s lifetime contributions and achievements by naming its new centre, the Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong Centre for Excellence for Education and Practice.

David Michael Rudder is one of the top calypsonians of his generation. In 1977 he joined Charlie's Roots, one of the top bands in Trinidad and Tobago. In 1986 he burst into prominence with his album “The Hammer” which produced two big hits, “The Hammer” (a tribute to the late pannist Rudolph Charles) and “Bahia Girl”. This was followed in 1987 with “Calypso Music”, a brilliant encapsulation of the history of calypso. In 1988 Rudder released his best album to date, “Haiti” which included the title track, a tribute to the glory and suffering of Haiti, “Engine Room”, which captures the energy of the steelband, and “Rally 'Round the West Indies” which has become the anthem of West Indies cricket. The song “Haiti” spurred his appointment in 1991 as a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador representing the Caribbean region.
David was born in Belmont, Trinidad on May 6, 1953. One of nine children, he spent much of his early childhood with his grandmother, a spiritual Baptist, growing up near a pan yard and a Shango yard, in a neighbourhood where boys dreamed of being entertainers. It was at school that he discovered how much the arts interested him. Rudder began singing at the age of 11 with a group called The Solutions. He also became an apprentice to the late Ken Morris, a master craftsman known for his copper work and carnival designs. David still paints today and in fact he sees himself more as an artist rather than an entertainer.
It was the influence of the Shango and Pan yard that was to actually colour his music. The chanting of the Shango Baptists continues to be at the heart of many of his songs. Long before Rudder established himself in the calypso arena, he was known as one of the few band singers who wrote all his own songs. His popularity flowed from his obvious talent and from the radically different image he cultivated of himself as a singer.
David Rudder enjoys reading and relaxing with his wife Christine and five children. He lives in Canada and spends much of his time touring in North America and Europe.