An Oro-Medonte woman with a long track record in broadcasting, theatre and activism has received Canada’s top honour for the performing arts.
Rita Shelton Deverell is one of seven people to receive a 2022 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award. Hers is for lifetime artistic achievement.
Deverell has left her mark on the broadcasting and arts scenes for 55 years. She worked for CBC and was news director with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).
One of her longest-lasting legacies has been Vision TV, the world’s first multifaith, multicultural network, which she co-founded. She produced Gemini Award-winning series for the network. She is also one of the first Black women in the country to hold the positions of TV host and network executive.
Winning the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award is “immensely gratifying,” Deverell said.
“I was totally surprised,” she said. “It creates a kind of soft glow in my heart.”
Deverell, who currently serves as Lakehead University’s chancellor, has had to clear a number of hurdles throughout her career.
In a video posted to the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards YouTube page, she spoke of the “racism, sexism, and corporate power plays” she has had to deal with.
“I am a woman and I am Black, and I have been operating in professions where we know there is systemic racism and sexism,” she told OrilliaMatters.
Deverell was hired by the Globe Theatre in Regina in 1971. It was before many theatres had even thought about “non-traditional casting,” she said, referring to people of different colours, genders and backgrounds.
She wanted to change that.
“Who ever said a medical doctor had to be a white man, for example?”
As for the corporate power play, she referred to her co-founding of Vision TV, which, at the time, was a not-for-profit network.
“That’s a difficult thing to do in the communications industry, which is largely a profit-driven enterprise,” she said.
Deverell is often referred to as a social activist, and much of that work has been accomplished through her various jobs and her efforts to promote equity, diversity and inclusion.
“Most of the social activism that I have done is not because I am in love with being an activist; it’s that I had to do these things for someone like me to be able to do what I do,” she said.
There is better representation now than when Deverell started in broadcasting, but there is “still a long way to go.”
Just as important as who is seen is “who owns it, who’s in executive management and who’s on the board of directors,” she said.
APTN is a good example, she added, because its owners and directors are Indigenous.
All of her experiences over the years have contributed to her successful career.
“I recognize that I am among a very small, privileged group of human beings,” she said. “I have been able to work for more than 50 years at exactly the work I think is important to do for the good of the planet as well as for the good of me, and I have been able to be paid for almost all of that.”
While it has been rewarding to receive a variety of honours, including being named to the Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award stands out.
“The award means I am being recognized by my colleagues for that work, and there is nothing more satisfying than that,” she said. “It means a great deal to me and I’m sure it means a great deal to all the other laureates as well.”
Joining Deverell on the list of 2022 laureates are Fernand Dansereau, David Foster, Tomson Highway, Crystal Pite, Linda Rabin and Michelle Smith.
Governor General Mary Simon will hand out the awards during a ceremony at Rideau Hall on May 28.
