Equity Panel 4 of 4 -- 25 Years After: A Retrospective on the Abella Commission and Employment Equity

On May 27th, the fourth and final equity issues panel was conducted at the 2009 Congress of the Humanities. The sessions marked the 25th anniversary of Rosalie Abella's Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, and sought to explore the status of equity today, and the progress made by those committed to the equity agenda in Canadian universities. The last panel, "25 Years After: A Retrospective on the Abella Commission and Employment Equity," looked specifically at the successes and failures of employment equity initiatives over the last two and a half decades in order to determine just how much of the rhetoric has been supported by practice. Speakers: Judy Rebick, Ryerson University; Shelagh Day, Poverty and Human Rights Centre of Vancouver; Isabella Bakker, York University; Joanne St. Lewis, University of Ottawa.  The panel was followed by a question and answer period and closing statements were made by Malinda Smith (Vice-president Equity Issues, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences).