If we can slag organizations when they fail us, surely we can thank them when they go out of their way to help us. And this summer, both the Weston Family Foundation and the National Bank of Canada helped Canadian literature and Canadian women in big ways and just in time.

For 20 years, the Giller Prize was the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Riding the bank’s rising commitment, the Giller became one of the best sponsorships in the land. Its purse grew from $25,000 to $100,000, its televised Gala became CanLit’s one big night, and a middle-sized fiction award became Canada’s richest literary award. Indeed, The Giller Effect boosted book sales for all the prize’s nominees.

Then in the Fall of 2023, authors and jurors began withdrawing over Scotiabank’s stake in an Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems. One author, Madeleine Thien, returned her prize from 2016, though not her $100,000 prize money.

Read on…