Reception: 6:30 p.m.
Dinner: 7:30 p.m.
The Arts & Letters Club
14 Elm Street Toronto, ON
M5G 1G7
It was back in 1993 that we initiated our Annual Scot of the Year Award to honour individuals with a Scottish connection who have achieved distinction through their contribution to Canadian society or the international community at large and we invite you and your friends and family to attend our 2023 event during which we will pay tribute to this year's recipient: the internationally acclaimed Canadian actor R. H. Thomson (Robert Holmes Thomson CM).
R. H. Thomson in the role of Matthew Cuthbert
in Anne with an E, the CBC/Netflix adaptation
of Anne of Green Gables
R. H. Thomson's career in Canadian television, film, and on stage spans five decades and he has received numerous awards for his contributions to the arts, and to war veterans. He has won a Genie Award, two Gemini Awards, a Dora Awardand a Canadian Screen Award, as well as the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. He is a passionate advocate for arts and culture in Canada and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010.
Thomson is making his debut as an author with his book By the Ghost Light which will be published on October 31st. It is a personal look at the wonder of youth, the power of art, and how the First and Second World Wars forever changed his family. According to Thomson, the memoir is intended as a call-to-action in challenging the way we approach our history. In recent years, Thomson has also established The World Remembers, an ambitious international project to individually name each of the millions killed in the First World War.
Above photo: George, Sam, Willie and the Rev. John, the four Thomson brothers who came to Canada around the mid 1870s. A few years after that, they brought their parents out to join them. George (bearded and a bit doleful on the chair on photo-left) is R. H. Thomson's great grandfather who was born on September 13, 1848, in Glasgow, Scotland and died on October 14, 1918 in Toronto. Before moving to Glasgow, the Thomsons had lived in Ayrshire and R. H. recalls that on a family visit to Scotland, a "Mrs Brown" took them to see the small stone croft where she said the Thomsons had lived for four hundred years. Myth or fact, he's not sure, but remembers being an amazed 12 year old.
The Scot of the Year event will be a magnificent evening of fine food, music and dance with a Scots-Canadian flavour in the historic environment of the Arts & Letters Club, designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2007.
We do hope you will be able to join us for this memorable evening, the proceeds of which will go to support the Scottish Studies Foundation, a registered Canadian charity established to raise awareness of the Scottish heritage in Canada through education at the university level.
Tickets for this event are $200 per person and you can order online or by mail at the link below.
(The dress code is Highland dress or business casual with a Scottish touch.)
Ordering Information
If you are unable to attend but would like to make a donation,
you can donate online by clicking on the PayPal button below,
or by mail using our donation form which you can access here
For more information, please contact Maggie McEwan
by telephone at 905-301-5475
or by e-mail at:
magmcewan@gmail.com