Jake Anthony
Burnaby

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Mr. Anthony is an accessibility consultant, disability rights advocate, motivational speaker and he holds his professional designation as a Canadian Certified Inclusion Professional (CCIP) from the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. He was a professional theatre artist for almost two decades, acting with many Vancouver theatre companies, as well as working in film, television and commercials. From 2013-2020, Mr. Anthony was a theatre instructor for the City of Burnaby Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services. He also had the pleasure of devising and teaching Burnaby's first adapted theatre class for adults of all abilities, which still runs to this day. As a person who identifies as living with a disability himself (specifically autism, with co-occuring mental health challenges), Mr. Anthony is passionate about working to build a more accessible, inclusive and welcoming community for all individuals. As an accessibility consultant, he has worked with theatre companies such as the Arts Club, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Zee Zee Theatre and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival on making their performances, venues and general operations accessible for patrons with disabilities. As a motivational speaker, Mr. Anthony has been a guest speaker at conferences, public schools, post secondary institutions and other venues across the province on the topics of disability rights, accessibility, inclusive education, advocacy and autism. Since 2017, he has also been a guest lecturer and departmental advisor to Capilano University's Applied Behaviour Analysis-Autism Program.

Mr. Anthony has served on the boards of directors of non-profit organizations such as Kickstart Disability Arts & Culture, BC Council for Families, Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network, Low Entropy Foundation, Plan Institute for Caring Citizenship and the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion. From 2018-2021, he served on the Board of Directors of the Crown corporation Community Living BC (CLBC). CLBC provides government funding, supports and services to over 23,000 adults with disabilities across the province. During his time on the Board, Mr. Anthony also sat on the Governance & HR and Quality & Service Committees, as well as serving as one of the board liaisons to CLBC's Provincial Advisory Committee of stakeholders. Along with his work as a member of the BC Arts Council, he currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Civic Theatres Board, a member of Destination BC's Accessibility & Inclusion Committee, a Resident Representative on the City of Burnaby Access Advisory Committee and as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for Disability Alliance BC. Mr. Anthony is a graduate of the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts.

A member of Council since July 10, 2023, his current appointment ends July 31, 2024.