Past Events

The Dignity Forum’s Human Rights Conference

Oct 22, 2022

On a snowy Saturday in October, The Dignity Forum hosted a Human Rights Conference. We had two keynote speakers and three panels, all which were filmed and can be found below.

Our MC Cori Ghitter starts off the day, welcoming Elder Dr. Doreen Spence to bring prayer & then we heard from our Keynote Speaker, Avnish Nanda.

Our first panel of the day, was about education and we were fortunate to have Elizabeth Shen moderate the group, which was made up of Dr. Sonia Aujla-Bhullar, John Fischer, Gail-Ann Wilson and Sarah Adomako-Ansah & Graham Lowes from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Ron Ghitter, Chairman & Founder of the Dignity Forum delivered the noon hour keynote speech, discussing the reason for starting The Dignity Forum and providing background of the Human Rights legislation in Alberta.

The Human Rights Commission Panel was our second panel of the day and we had the esteemed Kathleen Mahoney moderate. Our panellist joined us from across the country; Raj Dhir from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Marc-Alain Mallet from the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission, Robert Philp - Former Chief of the Commission and Tribunals of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Dr. Evaristus Oshionebo from the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Janine Elenko is a senior researcher & policy associate at Policywise, who was part of the team who researched the publication of ‘ Advancing Human Rights Protection in Alberta’ for Dignity Forum. It examined the history and current status of Alberta’s Human Rights Commission. Janine graciously agreed to present the findings of that publication for our conference.

The Political Panel was our last panel of the day and we were privileged to have Jennifer Koshan moderate for us. Our panellist joined us from across the political spectrum and consisted of the following: UCP MLA Leela Aheer, Alberta Party Leader Barry Morishita, Ward 11, City of Calgary Councillor Kourtney Penner & NDP MLA Jasvir Deol.

The Dignity Forum Launch Event

May 25, 2022