The Massey Dialogues – If No Seat, Then Stand: Putting Canada on the United Nations Map

This event will be broadcast online and is welcome to all – there is no login or registration required to tune in from the comfort of home. Click here to watch the livestream.

Celebrating World UN Day (Oct 24^th), join us this week for an exciting dialogue about the Canadian perspective on the United Nations. Senior Fellow Bob Rae, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the UN, will provide a global perspective of Canada’s presence at the UN in exchange with Kate White, CEO of United Nations Association in Canada and Junior Fellow Keshna Sood.  The discussion will be moderated by Steve Paikin and will review lessons learned from Canada’s history with the UN, outline our future position and assess the importance of multilateral agency at a time of democratic challenge and rising national interests.

Click here to watch the livestream of this event. The Dialogues are open to the public – we invite everyone to join and take part in what will be a very informative online discussion. Participants are invited to submit questions to the speakers in real time via the youtube channel’s chat function. For information about the Massey Dialogues salon series, click here.

The Honourable Robert Rae is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative-Designate of Canada to the United Nations in New York. Before his appointment by the Government of Canada, Mr. Rae served as Canada’s special envoy on humanitarian and refugee issues, continuing the important work that he began in 2017 as Canada’s special envoy to Myanmar while also addressing other pressing humanitarian and refugee issues around the world.

The former premier of Ontario and former interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Rae was elected 11 times to federal and provincial parliaments between 1978 and 2013. He stepped down as a member of Parliament in 2013 to return to legal practice and, in particular, to work with Indigenous communities and continue his work in education, governance and human rights. His passion for social justice dates back to his early days in student politics and community service.

Before his appointment as permanent representative, Mr. Rae was senior counsel at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP. In addition to his legal practice, he taught at the University of Toronto in the School of Public Policy and Governance, in the Faculty of Law and at Massey College and Victoria University, and he was a fellow of the Forum of Federations, Massey College and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He has also worked as a mediator and arbitrator with ADR Chambers. A former partner at Goodmans LLP, Mr. Rae led the restructuring of the Canadian Red Cross and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and chaired the board of the Royal Conservatory of Music. He is the author of 5 books and a number of government reports.

Mr. Rae is a privy councillor, a companion of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario and has numerous awards and honorary degrees from institutions in Canada and around the world. He received his Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern History from the University of Toronto and a Master of Philosophy degree as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College.

Keshna Sood is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto and Junior Fellow at Massey College. Keshna’s doctoral research involves the development and engineering of synthetic antibodies to support immune oncology and virology therapy. Keshna is an independent writer of science policy, member of the Toronto Science Policy Network (TSPN) and has presented science communication and STEM-curiosity lectures and workshops at over 20 public schools in the Toronto and Peel District School Boards. Keshna is a recipient of the Norman Bethune Award (2018), Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2018 and 2019), and has won several recognitions for her strong style of science communication and outreach particularly related to young women in STEM. As an Ambassador-at-large for the Airport-Mississauga Rotary Club, Keshna has represented her neighbourhood at the United Nations Office in New York City and has helped launch several Early-, Inter- and Rotar-Act Clubs to strengthen youth involvement with Rotary. Keshna is passionate about the intersections at which her technical training in science can reciprocally influence policy and the future of multi-lateral diplomacy.

Kathryn (Kate) White is the President and CEO of the United Nations Association in Canada. She has creatively and successfully led the Association since 2003 as it meets its important mandate across the country. For the previous twenty-five years, Kate White had been the head of Black & White Inc. an Ottawa-based international consultancy specializing in policy research, education and citizen engagement, integrating risk management and risk perception into initiatives and solutions. She has been recognized nationally and internationally for her leadership in issues ranging from youth-at-risk, climate change, disaster and crisis response and mitigation, corporate social responsibility, international peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Her policy and public engagement work included initiatives on the use of civil dissent in multilateralism (“Integrating Dissent” Foreign Policy); on the role of third party facilitators in peace negotiations; and on the role of civil society in solution-seeking in Cyprus, which led to the Annan Accord.

Steve Paikin is the host of TVO’s flagship current affairs program, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, the gold standard for in depth of analysis and thoughtful debate in Canadian media. In more than 35 years in the business, Steve has built a sterling reputation as an eminently fair journalist, who has moderated federal and Ontario election debates. Earlier in his career, Steve worked at CBC News as an anchor and correspondent, a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator and CHFI radio, as well as radio and television stations in Boston. Steve has authored seven books including his latest, Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All, has produced several feature-length documentaries, and reported from two different war zones. He is also a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University in Toronto. Steve has honorary degrees from Laurentian, Victoria University at the University of Toronto, McMaster University in Hamilton, and York University. In 2013, Steve was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions as a journalist who engages, informs and educates viewers on a broad range of public policy issues, and was invested into the Order of Ontario in 2014.  Steve is a member of the Quadrangle Society at Massey College.