CBC last week announced the participants chosen for the third year of AccessCBC: A CBC Initiative for Creators with a Disability, a national program that provides pre-development training, mentorship and financing support for Deaf and disabled creators.
Seven participants across four projects have been selected for the scripted comedy/drama and kids streams and, new this year, one participant has been selected for the podcast stream.
For the third iteration of AccessCBC, which launched in May 2025, CBC continues to collaborate with the Disability Screen Office (DSO), a national not-for-profit organization that works with the Canadian screen industry to eliminate accessibility barriers and foster authentic and meaningful disability representation throughout the sector. Award-winning disabled writer and performer Ophira Calof is also a consultant on the third year of AccessCBC.
The two scripted projects and the AccessCBC participants involved are:
- Socialized Medicine (comedy): C.J. Wilkins (Kelowna B.C.)
- North Beautiful (drama): Landon Ramirez (Vancouver) and Natalie Remplakowski (Toronto)
The two kids projects and the AccessCBC participants are:
- How To Be (for ages 4-6): Sophia Kolinas (Toronto) and Brendan McMurtry-Howlett (Toronto)
- Bora and the Big World (for ages 4-6): Sarah Goodman (Toronto) and John Hazlett (Toronto)
The successful candidate in the new podcast stream of AccessCBC is Brock Richardson (Kitchener, Ont.), who has been selected to work on the CBC podcast Sickboy, with an opportunity to hone his audio production skills and help create new episodes of the series.
The participants of the kids and comedy/drama scripted streams are currently attending development workshops led by industry experts, and working with CBC creative executives to gain practical experience writing pitch documents and to receive individualized feedback and coaching.
In addition, as part of the unscripted stream, two projects from creators and filmmakers working with the CBC Creator Network will be available on their respective platforms of CBC Gem and YouTube, while one project enters an initial phase of development.
These unscripted projects include:
- Under the Arbor (streaming on CBC Gem): documentary co-written and produced by Mackenzie Stannard (Vancouver)
- Composer Brain (available on AccessCBC’s YouTube playlist): short-form series by James Lowrie (Toronto)
- Chasing One Million (initial phase of development): first-person documentary by Cassie De Colling (Vancouver)
More information about the participants of the third year of AccessCBC is available here.
Image borrowed from AccessCBC’s website
