Human Rights A Day

Canada appoints world’s first woman ambassador, Margaret Meagher. Margaret Meagher was a Nova Scotia teacher who entered Canada’s foreign service before women were formally allowed to do so. In fact, she managed to achieve a diplomatic position in Mexico before women were allowed to take a foreign service officer’s entry exam, so she wrote hers in 1947 from Mexico. When she was appointed Canada’s ambassador to Israel on October 22, 1958, she became the first woman in the world to hold such a job. Her career entailed many postings, including a stint as ambassador to Sweden in 1969, where as she opened relations with China as Canada’s negotiator. After 32 years of service, she retired in 1974, and was awarded the Order of Canada that same year. Meagher died on February 25, 1999. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

UN speaks out against human rights violations in Tibet. Ever since China invaded the country of Tibet in 1949, the world has been calling for Tibet’s independence. When the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader, appealed to the United Nations on the question of Tibet, the UN adopted three resolutions in 1959, 1961 and 1965 that called on China to respect the human rights of Tibetans and their desire for self-determination. The UN General Assembly’s resolution on October 21, 1959 condemned China’s actions and declared its suppression of human rights in Tibet deplorable. Despite these and subsequent resolutions, China continues to prevent Tibet from celebrating its culture or spiritual independence. The Dalai Lama has traveled the world in his unending efforts to garner sufficient international pressure to force China to reintroduce freedoms in his country. For decades, he has set up institutions dedicated to Tibetan education, culture and religion in order to preserve its heritage and identity. Th

Tommy Douglas, Canada’s “Father of Medicare,” is born. Tommy Douglas was born in Scotland on October 20, 1904. When he was seven, his family moved to Manitoba. As an adult, he settled in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where he served as a Calvary Baptist minister. Once he entered politics, he tapped his speaking skills to help create the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a left-leaning political party he represented as a member of Parliament. After returning to Saskatchewan, he became premier of North America’s first socialist government in 1944. Over his lifetime, Douglas created and fought for many social causes. Among them was Medicare, for which be became known as “the father of Medicare.” Under Douglas’ leadership, Saskatchewan became the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate human rights protections. He managed to get the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights Act passed in 1947, one year before the UN passed its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Years later, the CCF became the NDP, which Douglas

Supreme Court Upholds mandatory retirement for police. There was no question that Stratford Ontario police officer Albert Large had to retire at the age of 60; both the police board and his union had agreed on that. But Large regarded it as age discrimination, and took his case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which agreed. The city appealed, only to lose at two separate Ontario court levels. However, on October 19, 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Large, saying the policy was valid under human rights legislation. According to the top court, most police work is strenuous, requiring young, fit candidates. If the force is peopled by too many older officers – who are typically at risk for cardiovascular disease and declining aerobic capacity – it puts strain on the department, which must scramble to create less strenuous positions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Canadian constitution finally deems women “persons” able to hold public office. Until 1929, the Canadian constitution did not regard women as “persons” under our constitution for appointment to the Senate and to sit as judges. Five Alberta women decided to challenge that in 1927: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir. Undeterred when defeated at the Supreme Court of Canada, these “famous five” women took their case to the judicial committee of the Privy Council of the House of Lords in England. After four days of deliberations, the council stated that Canadian women were eligible for appointment to the Senate. When he announced the decision, Lord Sankey, lord chancellor of the Privy Council, felt it appropriate to comment, “The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word ‘person’ should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?’” Henceforth, October 18th became known as

Supreme Court of Canada agrees to hear appeal of criminal exemption for hitting children. Canadian adults have protections from assault. The criminal code of Canada makes an offence of using force against anyone without their consent. However, an exception is made for children. Section 43 of the code states, “Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.” The Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law disagreed, and went to court in Ontario asking for that section to be struck from the code because it violated several protections under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In July, 2000, Judge McCombs of the Ontario Superior Court denied the application. A year and a half later, Ontario’s top court dismissed the appeal, but the foundation was undeterred. On October 17, 2002 the Sup

Claude Pattemore was born in Athens, Ontario in 1927. In 1948, a construction explosion at work blinded and nearly killed the 21-year-old. He underwent rehabilitation in Toronto and Hamilton before working first for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, then running cafeterias for a number of local Hamilton plants. Three years after his injury, Pattemore took up golf and immediately excelled at the game. He won tournaments for blind golfers in Ontario and Canada before clinching the title of International Blind Golfers champion in 1963. That same year, his personal best was 78 – a score rarely achieved even by sighted golfers. On October 16, 2000, Pattemore was inducted into the Ontario Golf Association’s Hall of Fame. He died in April, 2004. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On October 15, 1993, two very different men shared the Nobel Peace Prize: former prisoner Nelson Mandela, and South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk was the last president to reign over the apartheid system, which denied South Africa’s black majority of basic rights. From the day he was elected, de Klerk worked to end apartheid. First, he legalized the African National Congress (ANC). Then, in 1990, he freed Mandela from 28 years in prison. (He’d been jailed for working against apartheid with the then-outlawed ANC.) Together, Mandela and de Klerk took on the challenging task of conducting negotiations to create a new country and constitution. After years of segregation, all South Africans were given the vote in April of 1994. Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first president under the new system and an ANC government. Two years later South Africans created a new and permanent constitution, based on equality for all persons.

Dr. Martin Luther King awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A dedicated activist who worked to end discrimination against African Americans, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King became the symbolic leader of the American civil rights movement. Between 1957 and his assassination in 1968, King traveled millions of miles to speak thousands of times to hundreds of thousands of people. His quest was for equality among all men and women. In 1963, 250,000 predominantly African Americans marched on Washington, D.C., then paused to hear King deliver his “I have a dream” speech. Besides his public speaking, King wrote five books and met several times with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was selected as one of the ten most outstanding personalities of the year by Time magazine, which named him Man of the Year in 1963. But a highlight of his career occurred on October 14, 1964, when King, who’d been jailed numerous times for his convictions, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At age 35, he was the youngest man, second American a

Challenger brings home the first American woman to walk in outer space. Kathy Sullivan was born October 3, 1951, in Paterson, New Jersey, but spent most of her life in California. After receiving a degree in earth sciences in California, she pursued a doctorate in geology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating in 1978. As an astronaut with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1979, she took part in three space missions. On October 13, 1984, the spaceship Challenger brought home its five-man, two-woman crew from an eight-day mission during which Sullivan had become the first American woman to walk in space. The voyage also held Canadian experiments and an IMAX camera that recorded the historic flight. Among other achievements, Sullivan was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2004. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Victim of violent gay-bashing, Matthew Shepard dies in Laramie, Wyoming. Two male thugs with a hatred for gay men lured Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay freshman at the University of Wyoming, from Laramie, Wyoming’s Fireside Bar & Lounge. They tortured and beat him, then left him tied to a wooden fence in the October cold. A cyclist who spotted the 105 - pound, five-foot-two student 18 hours later, initially thought he was seeing a scarecrow. Rushed to a hospital, Shepard caught the attention of the American media, and soon vigils were in force around the world, especially in the U.S. Sadly, he died on October 12, 1998. Many well-wishers attended his funeral, but so did members of extremist religious groups, who held up signs with messages like “God hates fags.” Shepard’s parents established the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and his mother, Judy, still travels the world promoting hate-crimes legislation and tolerance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alberta teacher James Keegstra’s license revoked for racist teachings. James Keegstra taught students at Eckville Junior-Senior High School in Alberta starting in 1968. In 1982, a parent objected to his teaching students that when Protestants ruled England, all was good, while Catholic rule was marked by drunkenness and atrocities. In fact, Keegstra went beyond that, teaching students that Jews were inherently evil and that the Holocaust was a hoax. On December 7, 1982, the school board voted to terminate his contract, prompting some students to launch a petition to reinstate Keegstra. The grade 12 student who started the petition said, “He teaches things like moral values. He’s against abortion. He’s a Christian. He believes the things that are in the Bible.” On October 11, 1983, Alberta’s education minister, David King, announced that he was revoking Keegstra’s teaching certificate, following the recommendation of the Alberta Teachers Association. In 1985, Justice McKenzie of Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Ben

Christine Silverberg becomes the first female police chief of a major Canadian city. Christine Silverberg became the first woman police chief of a major Canadian city when she was sworn in as Calgary’s chief of police on October 10, 1995. Born Christine Bertram in 1949 and raised on a dairy farm close to Brampton, Ontario, Bertram met her husband, Ben Silverberg, while studying at York University in Toronto. At the age of 21, Silverberg became one of the first women recruits at the Mississauga police department, where she soon rose through the ranks to deputy chief of the Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario police department. When Silverberg left Ontario to take the top police job in Calgary, her appointment stirred controversy, not just because she was a woman, but because she had negotiated a salary that Calgary city councillors thought was too high. However, after five years on the job, Silverberg left the department with a much higher budget and hundreds more police officers than when she had started. As a woman

Maher Arar begins ten months of detention, beatings and torture in Syrian jail. Maher Arar was born in Syria in 1970 before his family moved to Canada in 1987. He obtained bachelors and masters degrees in computer engineering, became a Canadian citizen in 1991 and worked as a wireless technology consultant in Ottawa. On September 26, 2002, while changing planes in New York, Arar was detained by American officials. Believing he was linked to the terrorist group Al Qaeda, officials interrogated Arar for days, and his requests for a lawyer and a phone call were refused until October 5th, when he met with a lawyer for 30 minutes. Three days later he was deported to Syria and on October 9, 2002 arrived in Syria to an immediate interrogation. The next day he was taken to a cell he called the “grave”; it had no light and was three-by-six-by-seven feet. He would spend the next 10 months and 10 days there. During the first week, he was beaten with a shredded electrical cable and threatened with worse torture. Over tim

Anne Murray becomes the first woman and first Canadian to win a country music award. Anne Murray was one of Canada’s first country singers to gain international notoriety. Born June 20, 1945 in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Murray grew up intending to become a phys-ed teacher. She graduated from the University of New Brunswick with a degree in physical education and began teaching – while singing on television as a side job. But when she recorded the single “Snowbird” in 1970, it sold more than a million copies, rocketing her to stardom. Murray moved to Los Angeles for a short while before returning to Canada. During the early 1970s, she straddled the country and pop music worlds until a string of country hits solidified her country music success from 1979 until 1986. It was during this period that Murray was recognized by her peers in the country music business for her successes and contributions to the industry. On October 8, 1984 at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House, the Country Music Association announced that

Anita Hill offers to testify against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. On October 7, 1991, a U.S. Senate judiciary committee was scheduled to meet in Washington, DC to decide on whether to appoint Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. When a law professor by the name of Anita Hill offered to show up to speak that day, she was given the go-ahead. Once in front of the Senate committee, she dropped a bombshell: She accused Thomas of sexual harassment years before, when both had worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although her comments and Thomas’s reactions were widely reported in the media, thus raising the profile of sexual harassment issues, in the end, Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court. His decisions there have been among the most conservative of the court. Meanwhile, Hill returned to teaching law at Brandeis University, while also continuing to speak out about sexual harassment across the United States. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mississippi’s black civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer is born. Fannie Lou Hamer – born in Montgomery County, Mississippi on October 6, 1917 – became known as the woman who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” The youngest of 19, she was the granddaughter of slaves who had yet to gain basic human rights In 1962, a civil rights group came to her town and Hamer was the first to volunteer to register to vote. Hamer and other volunteers were jailed and beaten by police and Hamer was thrown off the plantation where her family worked. Undeterred, Hamer took on the job of field secretary for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee which sent her around the U.S., registering people to vote. In 1964, Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and attended the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There, on live television, she challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to give African Americans standing at the convention. She also informed the Democ

Supreme Court allows B.C. cabinet minister to be fired for sexual harassment. The British Columbia government received two complaints of sexual harassment against cabinet minister Robin Blencoe: one from an employee working in the minister’s office and the other from a representative of a sports organization receiving funding from the minister’s office. In March 1995 Premier Michael Harcourt released Blencoe from his cabinet portfolio. But were those allegations proper grounds for firing? Blencoe felt not, and took the case to court. After winding its way through procedural delays and tribunal processes, the Blencoe case made it to the Supreme Court of Canada as Blencoe tried to say his rights were violated. On October 5, 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that Blencoe’s rights had not been violated. However judges were unimpressed by a 30 month delay in the middle of this drawn-out process and forced the B.C. Human Rights Commission to pay the case’s costs. The court referred the case back to the tribunal level an

The U.S. CIA settled out of court with “brain-washed” Canadians. Did the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) finance “brain-washing” experiments during the 1950s and 1960s? When nine Canadians accused the CIA of that, observers were surprised by the agency’s unprecedented willingness to settle out of court. The nine plaintiffs were among 50 patients subjected to experiments involving drugs such as LSD, electro-shocks, sensory deprivation and isolation. They were all under the care of Dr. Ewan Cameron of the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal. And none knew they were part of CIA experiments involving mind-control programs that might benefit agents’ understanding of interrogation. On October 4, 1988, just days before the CIA was to go to trial, the agency agreed to pay $750,000 US to its accusers, while accepting no liability in the settlement. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

East and West Germany reunite. After World War II, Germany was divided into four zones controlled by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. In 1949, however, the Western countries combined their zones to create the Federal Republic of Germany, while the Soviet Union made its zone the communist-controlled German Democratic Republic. Germany’s divide was not only physical; it was also a symbol of the cold war that existed between Western nations and the Soviet Union. In 1955, West Germany became part of the NATO alliance, while East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. Finally, the Soviet Union’s collapse led to the literal collapse of the Berlin wall in November, 1989. It didn’t take long after that for the two Germanys to discuss becoming one again. When East Germans elected a pro-reunification government, the process quickened until, on October 3, 1990, formal political reunification converted a divided country into one Germany. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.