The experience of other countries may hold the key to problems
within Canadian federalism, say organizers of a conference
at the University of British Columbia.
Called Identities, Involvement, Living Together in Federal
States: International Aspects of Federalism, the conference
will be held Oct. 2 and 3. The UBC event immediately follows
a two-day conference on the same theme at Quebec’s Laval University.
Both are funded by the federal government’s Dept. of Foreign
Affairs.
The conference will bring together scholars and others from
Europe, Canada and the United States to look at issues such
as history and identity, self-determination, regional alienation,
national identity in multicultural societies, and ethnic and
class differences.
“Unlike other recent conferences that focused on special
issues in Canadian federalism, this will take a broader approach,”
says David Elkins, a political science professor and organizer
of the UBC sessions of the conference.
“We will look at the problems of other federal states and
examine how they have dealt with them. Perhaps this will help
us define our problems in a different way and we can learn
something that might be helpful.”
Speakers will include Peter Schmidhuber, president of Germany’s
Deutsch Bank, Finn Laursen, a Danish expert on politics and
public administration in the European Union and Ferdinand
Kinsky, director-general of the International Centre of European
Unification. UBC scholars taking part include political scientists
Phil Resnick and Barbara Arniel.
The conference is free and open to public.
- Date: Wednesday, Oct. 2
- Time: 1-6 p.m.
- Place: First Nations Longhouse,1985 West Mall
- Parking: Fraser Parkade on West Mall (Gate 4)
- Date: Thursday, Oct. 3
- Time: 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
- Place: Cecil Green Park House, 6251 Cecil Green
Park Road - Parking: Rose Garden Parkade on Northwest Marine
Drive
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