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Welcome and Introduction Dr. Noël Kinsella I wish to welcome you all to the campus, especially those who have come from different parts of the Province. I extend to you a warm welcome and we look forward to your active participation in the workshop. I want to also thank you for coming and sharing your reflections on this important topic, such that we might gain greater insight from the experiences of each other. This is why we are so pleased to have people coming from different parts of the Province and the community. Let me share with you a little bit of the background of the Atlantic Human Rights Centre, which is your host today. The Centre is a university research centre that promotes the development of multi-disciplinary teaching and research in all areas of human rights at the regional, national and international levels. The Centre's research and development activities include work being done by our colleagues not only in this Province, but also in our sister provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The Centre undertakes academic research as well as doing applied work. Out reach to the community is an important part of the Centre's mandate and mission, and one of the ways in which St. Thomas University is able to contribute to our community in recognition of the support the university receives from the community. The AHRC has three special units, with their own unique endowments. The Centre is the place where the university's endowed Chair of Studies in Canadian Citizenship and Human Rights is located, it is also the place where we have located the Dr. Bernie Vigod Lecture series in Human Rights which allows the Centre to host a special event every fall. Last year was the locus of the Dr. Abdul Lodhi Memorial Lectureship, which is held during the month of March in and around the date of March 21: International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Dr. Lodhi was a colleague of ours here at the university and was the founder, along with others such as Dr. McNeilly, of the AHRC. Dr. Lodhi, who died in 1991, was also the inspiration for the university's interest in an academic program in partnership with the applied sector in the field of criminology and social justice. We thought that it would be appropriate for this second Dr. Abdul Lodhi Workshop and Memorial Lecture to focus in an area where he had contributed so much. We are looking forward to a good day As an academic based centre, academic freedom is terribly important. There are no views which are unspeakable, there are no observations that can not be articulated; the only caveat is that you ought to be prepared to defend them. So its an open forum and we are interested in exploring truth and trying to ascertain the best way of making our understanding more acute. The first preambular paragraph of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights speaks to the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, and that this universally recognized value is seen by the world community as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace. International human rights covenants also underscore that the individual having duties to other individuals and the community to which he or she belongs is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion of human rights, social justice and human dignity. We are hopeful that today's workshop might in a small way contribute to a better understanding of the field of corrections and how we take steps to ensure that the dignity and responsibility of all is respected and built upon. The program identifies a number of events that we hope to get through today. The first happy event is the university announcement, and I'm going to call upon Dr. Roger Barnsley, Vice-President of Academic at St. Thomas University, to come to the podium and share with us the work of this university in the field of corrections and social justice.
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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University |
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