Dear all,

 

Thank you to those who were able to attend today’s call. Here are some notes from our conversation. Please feel free to add if I forgot something important.

 

In attendance: Kyle Matthews (Concordia U.); Melike Yilmaz and Bonny Ibhawoh (McMaster U.); Adele Perry (U. Manitoba); Virginia Caputo (Carleton U.); Anna Purkey (U. Waterloo); Nandini Ramanujam (McGill U.); Mirja Trilsch (UQAM); John Packer and Viviana Fernandez (uOttawa).

Excused: Justin Rasmussen, Christina Szurlej and Mona Paré.

 

The meeting began with a short introduction round and a review of institution members not in attendance. Adele Perry will connect with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation since there was a change of leadership and the new Director may not be aware of CAHRI.

Topics discussed:

  1. Joint activities and initiatives:
    1. Canadian Yearbook of Human Rights. This will continue as a joint initiative of CAHRI.

                                                               i.      Need to establish an Editorial Advisory Board (initial interest from Karen Busby (U. Manitoba), Anna Purkey, Nandini Ramanujam, Virginia Caputo and John Packer) and hire a Managing Editor (ideally a graduate student). HRREC has some funding to support this.

                                                             ii.      Current edition of the Yearbook (2019-20) is expected to be published this summer, including a Covid-19 special section edited by Alex Neve. Some members have already committed policy contributions. A fall event is also planned to showcase the contributions from members. John will follow up on this separately.

                                                           iii.      Could create multimedia materials (podcasts) to accompany the different volumes of the Yearbook, like other publications do.

                                                           iv.      Need to start planning next edition (2021 alone or 2021-22).

    1. Research projects and initiatives:

                                                               i.      Consider producing shadow reports for UNSR visits and reports, UPR reviews, etc.

    1. HRREC will organize a conference on the Charter and Human Rights in early 2022 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Charter and the Centre. CAHRI members will be invited to participate/contribute.
    2. Advocacy on issues of national importance (letters, petitions, statements, etc.). The idea seems natural for a body like CAHRI but there may process related problems for members to endorse such actions. This issue should be explored further by every member in case their particular rules do not allow them to join group actions.
  1. Institutional set up for CAHRI:
    1. Proposals to identify one representative per CAHRI member and to list joint initiatives on the webpage – approved. Please send the information to Christina Szurlej cszurlej@stu.ca at your convenience.
    2. Consider creating an Executive Board/Committee for CAHRI and establish a constitution which could incorporate issues like how to deal with joint statements/letters. Members are invited to share options to consider as possible models.
    3. Use the listserv to share information about research initiatives, events and advocacy actions, etc.  

 

Very best wishes,

 

Viviana

 

Viviana A. Fernandez

Directrice adjointe / Assistant Director

Human Rights Research and Education Centre /

Centre de recherche et d’enseignement sur les droits de la personne

Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa

http://www.cdp-hrc.uottawa.ca   

Twitter: @vafi1217

 

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