Rebecca Strong and Kelly Taylor will represent Prince Albert and Saskatchewan at Canada's Got Talent. (City TV)

By Nigel Maxwell

Chasing dreams

New season of Canada’s Got Talent to include Saskatchewan flavour

Mar 13, 2024 | 5:00 PM

The newest season of Canada’s Got Talent (CGT) starts next week and among the four people from Saskatchewan invited to audition, are a comedian and a singer from Prince Albert.

Rebecca Strong is scheduled to be on the show on the 26th and Kelly Taylor will appear during one of the following six weeks that have been dedicated to auditions.

Strong, 20, told paNOW she was ecstatic when she learned her application had been accepted and explained her goal when she appears on stage for a national audience, is to inspire Indigenous youth to chase their own dreams.

“I just want to be a model for them,” she said.

Strong, who graduated from St Mary High School confessed she’s always been a fan of the Got Talent shows and dreamed one day of appearing on one of them. While not a stranger to the stage, having performed at Voices of the North during the Prince Albert Winter Festival, Strong confessed the CGT stage is quite a bit bigger than the ones she used to.

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“I’m always nervous of course but the stage is where I’m most confident. I feel I can be myself and show who I truly am,” she explained.

Strong also recalled some good advice she received from a former drama teacher.

“He said that if you’re not nervous, you are not passionate about it”

Rebecca Strong at Voices of the North. (All My Relations Photography)

The grand prize for the contest is a million dollars, and when asked what she would do with the money, Strong replied she would first like to help her parents who have been very supportive of her, and that she has always dreamed of having her own studio in her home.

Following Strong’s announcement on social media she had been accepted, she received an outpouring of support from friend and family. However, she is taking it all in stride.

“I think that being successful doesn’t mean being the most famous but just having a support system and knowing everyone believes in me just pushes me to do more with my music,” she said.

Kelly Taylor has performed on stages all over North America and at a number of big shows including Canada’s Top Comic and the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. But he noted the stakes for CGT are much higher.

“Well this one has big money involved,” he joked. “So I’m gonna say it’s a little bit more stressful.”

Known as a storyteller comedian, Taylor said confessed having to condense a 12-minute joke into three minutes was a bit challenging.

“These kinds of things could obviously benefit the guys that can fire out the one line jokes, and it’s not conducive to my style but it is what it is and I will take the opportunity,” he said.

When asked what he would do with a million dollars, Taylor paused for less than a second before replying “get out of debt.”

“Four kids, three horses and an acreage and a couple years of COVID so I’d probably try to get out of that debt and then maybe go on a trip to Africa with the family,” he said.

With respect to which celebrity judge he was most looking forward to meeting, Taylor said he wanted impress fellow comedian Howie Mandel but added WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus was a close second.

The new season Canada’s Got Talent on CityTV starts on March 19 and the first eight weeks are dedicated to auditions.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @nigelmaxwell