The Canadian Farmworkers Union was a labour union representing farmworkers in Canada. It was active from 1978 to 1987, primarily among South Asian migrants to British Columbia and Ontario. In 1993, it pushed the New Democratic Party of British Columbia's government to extend health and safety regulations to agricultural workers. [1]
A number of CFU leaders later became prominent politicians and activists in the province. Future Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia Raj Chouhan was CFU's founding president and social activist Charan Gill was a founding member. [1]
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby, Surrey, and Vancouver. The 170-hectare (420-acre) main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and comprises more than 30,000 students and 160,000 alumni. The university was created in an effort to expand higher education across Canada.
Svend Robinson is a Canadian politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2004, who represented suburban Vancouver-area constituencies of Burnaby for the New Democratic Party (NDP). He is noted as the first member of Parliament in Canadian history to come out as gay while in office. In 2004, he pled guilty to stealing an expensive ring and decided not to run in the June 2004 election. At the time, he was one of the longest-serving members in the House of Commons, having been elected and re-elected for seven consecutive terms. In the 2019 Canadian federal election, Robinson was the NDP candidate for the riding of Burnaby North-Seymour, but lost to the Liberal incumbent Terry Beech by 1,560 votes.
The SFU Red Leafs or Simon Fraser Red Leafs teams represent Simon Fraser University (SFU), which is located in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The Red Leafs are members of NCAA Division II and are the only Canadian university affiliated with the U.S.-based National Collegiate Athletic Association. The teams previously used the nicknames "Clansmen" and "Clan," which were retired in 2020. In September 2022, the updated nickname "Red Leafs" was announced.
Ellen Woodsworth is an international speaker and activist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is the founder and matriarch of Women Transforming Cities International Society and the Co-Chair of WILPF, Canada.
Kathryn Cholette is a Canadian politician who served as leader of the Green Party of Canada from 1988 to 1990. Just prior to the end of her term as leader, Cholette publicly resigned her post in an article entitled "Why I Left the Green Party". She was the first woman elected to lead a federal political party in Canada, preceding Audrey McLaughlin by a year.
Leonard Matheson Norris, better known as Len Norris, was a longtime editorial cartoonist for the Canadian newspaper Vancouver Sun from 1950 to 1988. Called by Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, "the best in the business", Norris' cartoons skewered the foibles of British Columbia politics and social mores with a barbed pencil. His intricate drawings were full of subtle detail, with several sideplots tucked into the frame, with everything from sardonic pictures on the living room wall to what the kids or the cat are doing in the corner while the main action is going on, typically with painfully ironic dialogue. Norris cartoons remain popular today even though much of their original political or social context is gone.
Mark Leier is a Canadian historian and, since 1994, a professor of working class and left-wing history at Simon Fraser University (SFU). From 2000 to 2010, he was the director of the Centre for Labour Studies at Simon Fraser.
Raj Chouhan is a Canadian politician and trade unionist, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia as the MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds in the 2005 provincial election. He is serving as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. He previously served as the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 2017 to 2020. While in opposition he served as the critic for Mental Health; Human Rights, Immigration and Multiculturism and Labour. He was re-elected in 2009 and 2013.
A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harvesting, but not to a worker in other on-farm jobs, such as picking fruit.
SFU's Beedie School of Business is the business school at Simon Fraser University (SFU) with multiple campuses across the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, Canada. Simon Fraser University was founded in 1965 and by 1982, the business discipline had grown to sufficient size to become its own distinct faculty, and the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree was established. In 2022, SFU Beedie celebrates its 40th anniversary.
The Shrum Bowl is a university rivalry game played between the gridiron football teams of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds and the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Red Leafs. The game is named after Gordon Shrum who was a professor and later a dean at UBC from 1925 to 1961 and served as the first chancellor of SFU from 1964 to 1968. It is a cross-town rivalry with UBC being located in the University Endowment Lands just west of Vancouver, British Columbia, and SFU located approximately 30 kilometres away in Burnaby, British Columbia.
4D LABS is a materials science research institute at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada that focuses on the design, development, demonstration, and delivery of advanced functional materials and nanoscale devices. Its $41 million facility opened in Jan 2007 with funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, and Simon Fraser University.
The SFU Red Leafs football or Simon Fraser Red Leafs football team has represented Simon Fraser University since the athletic department's inception in 1965. The team played by American rules while they competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics from 1965 to 2001 against other American teams. Along with other SFU teams, the football program transferred to Canadian Interuniversity Sport and thereby switched to playing Canadian football against Canadian University teams in 2002. While playing in the CIS, SFU won its first and only Hardy Trophy conference championship in 2003 while qualifying for the playoffs twice. After playing eight seasons in the Canada West Conference of the CIS, the football team began competing in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference of NCAA Division II in 2010, and have played the American format of football again since. After the GNAC dropped football after the 2021 season, SFU and the other two GNAC members that still sponsored the sport became football-only members of the Lone Star Conference.
Terry Beech is a Canadian politician who was elected as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of Canada to represent the federal electoral district of Burnaby North—Seymour during the 2015 Canadian federal election.
Alan Twigg, CM has received the Order of Canada, as a prolific journalist, historian, biographer, website-builder, film maker, community-builder and athlete. He created Canada's most-read, independent publication about books, BC Bookworld, a trade newspaper for the British Columbia book publishing industry and served as its publisher and main writer for thirty-three years until he gave the business away in 2020. He also founded or co-founded many of the province's major literary awards. When he was accorded an honorary doctorate by Simon Fraser University in 2022, SFU described him as British Columbia's leading man of letters. He also developed ABCBookWorld, an online encyclopedia of British Columbia authors. He is also a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2016.
Thelma Finlayson was a Canadian entomologist. She was one of the first female scientists to work at a federal government's research branch and was Simon Fraser University's first professor emerita upon her retirement in 1979.
Tamara Rowanne Vrooman,, is a Canadian businesswoman and civil servant who currently serves as chair of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. From 2007 until July 2020, she served as the CEO of Vancity Credit Union. During the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia, Vrooman left Vancity to accept a position as the president and CEO of Vancouver International Airport and the 12th chancellor of Simon Fraser University. Vrooman has previously served as British Columbia's first and youngest female deputy minister of Finance.
Kika Thorne is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, curator, and activist. She was born in Toronto in 1964, where she is currently based.
Marianne Boelscher Ignace is a Canadian linguist and anthropologist. Married into the Shuswap people, she is a Full professor in the departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Director of SFU's Indigenous Languages Program and First Nations Language Centre. In 2020, Ignace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her work in revitalizing and preserving indigenous languages.
Charanpal Singh Gill was a Canadian social activist and South-Asian community leader in British Columbia. Through his work, he focused on improving the living conditions, wages, and working conditions of farmworkers across British Columbia and Canada. He was an inductee to the Order of British Columbia in 1999, a recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, and the BC Achievement Foundation Community Award in 2010 for his contributions toward community service and social justice advocacy.