| Canadian Council on Social Development 309 Cooper Street 5th/e Floor/Étage Ottawa, ON K2P 2R3 |  | Conseil canadien de
développement social Tel: (613) 236-8977 Fax: (613) 236-2750 E-mail: council@ccsd.ca Internet: www.ccsd.ca |
| Canadian Council on Social Development 309 Cooper Street 5th/e Floor/Étage Ottawa, ON K2P 2R3 | | Conseil canadien de
développement social Tel: (613) 236-8977 Fax: (613) 236-2750 E-mail: council@ccsd.ca Internet: www.ccsd.ca |
Communiqué
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Social policy experts converge on Ottawa to debate social inclusion
Ottawa – With recent world events as a dramatic backdrop, a group of Canadians is meeting in Ottawa this week at a conference hosted by the Canadian Council on Social Development and the Laidlaw Foundation, to build a shared vision of social inclusion. Such a vision could transform Canadian society and the way governments make policy and deliver services.
Social inclusion, a major reference point in the government’s most recent Speech from the Throne, is already an established framework for policy in Europe. Participants hope that the conference can translate it into a forward-looking policy agenda for children and families in Canada. Notable conference participants include Avrim Lazar, Assistant Deputy Minister of Strategic Policy at HRDC, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, Shelley Phipps of Dalhousie University, former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission Catherine Frazee and Stephan Klasen of the University of Munich.
“Social inclusion is more than removing income barriers -- it refers to the opportunity for active participation in society, recognition by others and the development of one’s own talents and capacities to the full,” says Andrew Jackson, research director at the CCSD. “Social inclusion moves beyond the traditional debates about poverty and discrimination without minimizing the importance of providing decent incomes and removing barriers.”
“Social inclusion gets at the heart of what it means to be human: belonging, acceptance, and recognition,” says Christa Freiler, Children’s Agenda Program Coordinator at the Laidlaw Foundation. It requires policy-makers to move outside of their silos of income, race, gender and ability, to recognize that these factors often overlap in a variety of ways to exclude people.
“It says citizens are not just consumers of government services but active contributors to the world in which they live,” notes Marvyn Novick, Professor of Social Policy at Ryerson University. “We've been dealing with citizenship as meaning the accountability of government to individuals, but this is evolving to a notion that goes deeper.”
The conference, entitled A NEW WAY OF THINKING? Towards a vision of social inclusion, will take place on November 8-9, 2001, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ottawa, 101 Lyon Street. Conference programs, schedules and materials are available on the Canadian Council on Social Development’s website, at www.ccsd.ca. For interviews with participants or more information, please call John Kane, Communications Officer at the CCSD, at (613) 236-5868, ext. 228.
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The CCSD is an independent, non-profit research institute dedicated to improving the social and economic security of Canadians. Led by a national, voluntary Board of Directors, the Council’s members share a commitment to improving the lives of Canadians.
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