Righting Injustice: Bringing People Together for a Better Future

Arthur Miki has had a distinguished career as an educator and community activist. He began his career as an elementary school teacher and later served as principal for 18 years.

Throughout his career, Mr. Miki dedicated a considerable amount of time in promoting positive race relations and a greater understanding between peoples, as well as to increase awareness of human rights issues in Canada.

Mr. Miki is an active leader in the Japanese Canadian community having served as president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians from 1984-1992. In 1984, the NAJC undertook a national campaign to seek redress from the federal government whose policies forcibly uprooted 21,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes, their property confiscated and placed into internment centres in interior British Columbia or sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba or into prisoner-of-war camps in Northern Ontario. At the end of the war some 4000 internees were sent to Japan and others who wanted to remain in Canada were dispersed across Canada east of the Rockies. He led the negotiations to achieve a just redress settlement for Japanese Canadians interned during the Second World War. On September 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney acknowledged the wrong and apologized in the House of Commons and an extensive redress package was announced, including the formation of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

In 1991, Art received this country’s highest recognition, the Order of Canada and on July 12, 2012 the Order of Manitoba.

Connie is a leader in the Japanese Canadian community. She was an original member of Sodan Kai, a board member of both the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation and the JCCC and was the founding Chair of the JCCC's inaugural "Building Together" Capital Campaign and of Sedai, the Japanese Canadian Legacy Project that has now recorded almost over 200 oral histories from members of the Canadian Nikkei community. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the JCCC.

Before retiring from law in 2012, Connie was recognized as one of Canada's leading corporate and mergers and acquisitions lawyers. She currently serves on the boards of the Ontario Financing Authority, the Mount Pleasant Group and the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement. She has also served as Chair of the Hospital for Sick Children, as Vice-Chair of Canada Health Infoway and as a director of, among others, the Toronto International Film Festival Group, The Nikko Securities Co. Canada Ltd., the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Ontario Exports Inc. and Women in Capital Markets. She was appointed a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Ryerson University (2012-2015). Connie was recently appointed by the Province of Ontario to their Steering Committee on Women in Business.

In 2014, Connie was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of her contributions to the legal profession and her community engagement and in 2015, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D) from the University of Western Ontario.

ANNE SCOTTON was named the first Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) in April of 2007. She is responsible for internal audit, liaison with the OAG, evaluation, performance measurement and review as well as corporate risk and investigation services.

She played a key role in negotiating and delivering Japanese-Canadian Redress, was founding Executive Director of the Japanese-Canadian Redress Secretariat and the Multiculturalism Secretariat, and responsible for the development of legislation which led to the creation of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. She worked as Director General, Strategic Planning and Federal-Provincial Relations for Canadian Heritage then at the Privy Council Office from 2001 to 2007, in both Cabinet Operations and in Intergovernmental Affairs, as DG Strategic Policy and Research.

Anne served her community as President, Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa-Carleton, Trustee and Chair of the Management Committee, Ottawa Board of Education and President of the Glebe Community Association. She is VP of the Board of The Glebe Centre, a long-term care facility.

Anne holds a BA Honours, Political Science and an M.A. in Canadian Studies and is a Certified Risk Management Assurance certificate holder (CRMA).

Honourable Gerry Weiner is the former Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Multiculturalism, and Secretary of State of Canada. In an almost 20 year public career, Mr. Weiner was elected to five governments. Mr. Weiner was responsible for the creation of the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program, The Department of Multiculturalism, and the passage of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act.

He is now the Director of Investor Relations at PACE Law Firm. Mr. Weiner was also the former chair of the board of the Old Port of Montreal, and the former chair of the board of the Centre for Literacy of Quebec. He has an Honorary PhD from St. Thomas University in N.B. for his work in fighting racism and in the defense of Human Rights.

Rubin Friedman is dedicated to issues of community, integration, prejudice and discrimination. Most recently, he was responsible for the Against Prejudice training program to address the biases and prejudices that can create difficulties for some newcomers in adapting to Canadian society – both in terms of homeland attitudes of newcomers and of behaviours of those who serve them. He developed the training, materials, videos, exercises, presentations and booklets supporting these efforts, as well as directing teams in Ottawa and Toronto in the delivery of sessions across Ontario