Speaker Bios
Jackson Proskow
Jackson Proskow brings his lifelong passion for news and current affairs to Global National as Washington Bureau Chief.
His reporting career has taken him across Canada, the United States and around the world. He has covered several American presidential elections, countless hurricanes, mass shootings, and other major news events. He reported from earthquake-devastated Turkey in 2023, and from Nepal in 2015, as well as covering the 2011 Royal Wedding in London. His reporting has been profiled in other media outlets including CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC News and Esquire magazine.
Prior to joining Global National in 2014, Jackson was on the front lines of Toronto’s biggest news stories. Covering the City Hall beat, he asked Mayor Rob Ford the tough question that led to his confession of having used crack cocaine, sparking an international media frenzy.
He has put his love of investigative journalism to work with Global News, helping to uncover serious structural flaws with Toronto’s elevated Gardiner Expressway, prompting a city-wide debate about the future of the road. At Global’s current affairs show 16X9, Jackson worked on a documentary that examined a widely-used pesticide that is suspected of harming honey bees. Use of the pesticide has since been heavily restricted by the Ontario government.
Jackson entered the broadcast industry while still in high school, reporting for Shaw TV Calgary. In 2004, he graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelors degree in Communication Studies and later earned a diploma in Broadcast Journalism, with Honours, from Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).
After graduating, Jackson joined Global Lethbridge as a reporter and weekend anchor. He then made the jump to Ontario in 2005, moving to CHCH-TV in Hamilton as a reporter and videographer, later joining the Global Toronto team in 2006.
Jackson’s work has been honoured with several major awards, including the RTDNA Edward R. Murrow award for outstanding investigative journalism for the series Gardiner Expressway, Trouble Overhead. The series also earned Jackson and the Global News team the RTDNA Dan McArthur Award and Digital Media Award.
Jackson lives in Washington, D.C., and loves to travel, run, and explore Washington’s restaurant scene.
Paul Wells
Paul Wells is one of Canada’s leading political journalists. He hosts The Paul Wells Show, a weekly interview podcast featuring leaders in government, journalism, business and the arts. His subscription newsletter is a leading source of Canadian political news and analysis for a fast-growing and influential audience. For 19 years, he was the lead political writer at Maclean’s magazine. He has also written for the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and The National Post. He has worked extensively overseas, including in Europe, the United States and Afghanistan.
Wells is the author of four books and a frequent commentator on French- and English-language television and radio.
Shachi Kurl
Shachi Kurl is President of the Angus Reid Institute, Canada’s non-profit foundation committed to independent research. She works with public opinion data to further public knowledge and enhance the national understanding of issues that matter to Canada and the world.
Kurl is often found offering analysis on CBC’s “Power and Politics”, in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and on the editorial pages of the Ottawa Citizen, among other places. In October 2020, she moderated BC’s only televised provincial election debate, presented by the British Columbia Broadcast Consortium.
She spent the first part of her career as political reporter and holds a degree in Journalism and Political Science from Carleton University. She returned to Carleton University as an Adjunct Research Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication in 2022.
Kurl is a recipient of the prestigious Jack Webster Award for Best TV Reporting. Along with former Australian and UK Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Margaret Thatcher, she is an Alumnus of the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. She is a national co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Society.
Kurl moderated the 2021 English language leaders debate during the 44th federal election. She also won the Industry Marvel Award from Darpan Magazine in October of that year.
Guest Moderator: Jayme Poisson
Jayme Poisson is the host of daily CBC News podcast FRONT BURNER. Prior to this, she spent eight years as a reporter for The Toronto Star, focusing largely on investigative reporting. Poisson has been nominated for three national newspaper awards: she was part of a team that won the Governor General’s Michener award for reporting on former Toronto mayor Rob Ford; and she has won the Sidney Hillman award for public service journalism twice, for investigations into sexual assault on university campuses and ongoing mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows First Nation. Poisson’s mercury poisoning investigation also won an award for achievement in human rights reporting from the organization Journalists for Human Rights.
