`Bigger and better'

CANADA'S GOT TALENT RETURNS TO SCREENS WITH MILLION-DOLLAR PRIZE

As Canada's Got Talent returns for its third season, judge Howie Mandel is certain of one thing: this will be the biggest edition in the global franchise's history.

“It's back bigger and better than ever,” Mandel, 68, tells Postmedia in a video call from Los Angeles. “It's a million dollars now.”

Not only is it a million dollars, this year's Golden Buzzer acts who go straight through to the semifinal round will pocket $25,000.

“This is bigger than America's Got Talent or any of the other Got Talents around the world. You can win more money and it puts you on a world stage,” Mandel says.

Since America's Got Talent launched in 2006, regional versions of Simon Cowell's show have appeared in 75 territories with more than one billion viewers watching the show globally.

This season's Got Talent acts appeared in front Mandel — and his fellow judges musician Kardinal Offishall, former WWE star Trish Stratus, and comedian, actress and writer Lilly Singh — during auditions that took place in Niagara Falls, Ont., last fall and earlier this winter with Lindsay Ell hosting.

Mandel, a standup star in his own right who appeared on the hospital drama St. Elsewhere in the 1980s as well as the game show Deal or No Deal (which featured a young Meghan Markle — and, no, he doesn't remember her), has been judging on NBC's AGT for the past 15 seasons.

But after a one-season edition that aired 2012 with actor Martin Short, opera singer Measha Brueggergosman and musician Stephan Moccio judging, Mandel yearned to see a homegrown iteration return to the air.

“To be on a world stage launching from Canada is the reason I want to be involved,” he says. “I started in Canada and I've always resented the fact that I had to leave Canada to go make a name for myself.”

Last month, Mandel won the inaugural season of AGT's Fantasy League spinoff when his pick, The Ramadhani Brothers, won the coveted title.

“It was more than just judging,” he said of the series that saw him compete against teams put together by Simon Cowell, Mel B and Heidi Klum. “We were competing. My happy place is competing. I would do anything to win, and I did do anything to win and I won.”

Fantasy League, which saw the AGT judges competing against one another, hasn't yet been renewed for a second season, but Mandel expects the offshoot to return.

“There's nothing in writing. I know that it did well and I know it was well received ... I'll be there if they want me,” he says.

In the meantime, Mandel is happy to be back on home soil as new episodes of air Tuesdays on Citytv ahead of a two-hour finale on May 14.

“Each season sets a bar. People can see what other people can do, they get ideas and are inspired and then they show up doing something bigger and better and something we've never seen before,” Mandel says.

That proved true this season as he watched 116 musical, dance, comedy and novelty acts walk across the stage in front of him.

“I've been doing this for a long time and I kind of show up thinking, `I've seen everything,' and it is the most exciting thing to see something done in a way that you wouldn't expect. People are going to be surprised, people are going to be excited, people are going to be proud and one act is going to walk away with a million dollars.”

Since joining the Got Talent franchise in 2010, Mandel says acts that get his endorsement are all united in their ability to surprise him.

“Everybody has wow moments in their life and they've given us a button and a prize ... it is a wow moment,” he says. “I don't press it unless I think, `Wow!' My wow may not be your wow, that's the beauty of this.”

Beside being able to help bestow a massive top prize, Mandel says he never tires from being in an auditorium as he watches someone's life change right before his eyes.

“To be sitting in a room where somebody or some group shows up with hopes and dreams and right there in front of me, like 10 feet in front of me, I watch in that moment their lives change, their paths change, their world changes,” he says.

“It is the most exciting thing. I can't believe it's a job. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have that seat.”

CITYTV Howie Mandel is a judge on both Canada's Got Talent and America's Got Talent. The Toronto native says even though he's been with the global franchise for years, he still has “wow” moments every season.