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 15 kilometres (9.3 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.
Winona Grace MacInnis was a socialist Canadian politician. She was the first woman from British Columbia elected to the House of Commons of Canada, as well as the first wife of a former Canadian Member of Parliament to be elected to the House of Commons in her own right, rather than by directly succeeding her husband in a by-election following his death.
Mary Ellen Spear Smith was a politician in British Columbia, Canada. She was the first female Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and both the first female cabinet minister and the first female Acting Speaker and the first woman cabinet minister in the British Empire.
Tim Louis is a lawyer and municipal politician in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was elected to the Vancouver Park Board in 1990 and 1993, and later to Vancouver City Council as a member of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) in 1999 and 2002.
Gregor Angus Bethune Robertson is a Canadian businessman and a progressive politician, who served as the 39th mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia, from 2008 to 2018. As the longest consecutive serving Mayor in Vancouver's history, Robertson and his team led the creation and implementation of the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan and spearheaded the city's first comprehensive Economic Action Strategy.
Linda Reid is a Canadian politician who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of British Columbia, representing Richmond East from 1991 to 2017, and Richmond South Centre from 2017 to 2020. A caucus member of the British Columbia Liberal Party, she served in the cabinets of premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark as Minister of State for Early Childhood Development from 2001 to 2005, Minister of State for Childcare from 2005 to 2009, and Minister of Advanced Education in 2017. She was also the 37th Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 2013 to 2017.
Andrea Reimer is a Canadian politician, who served on Vancouver, British Columbia's City Council from 2008 to 2018. She was first elected in 2002 to the Vancouver School Board as a Green Party candidate. She was defeated as a Green Party candidate in her re-election campaign in 2005 and then joined the Vision Vancouver party to support Gregor Robertson's mayoral campaign. She subsequently ran for and won a council seat in the 2008 municipal election. After serving four terms on council, she chose not to run for re-election in the 2018 municipal election. She is currently an adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, and served on the UBC Board of Governors as a provincial appointee from December 2019 to October 2020.
Sandra Djwa is a Canadian writer, critic and cultural biographer. Originally from Newfoundland, she moved to British Columbia where she obtained her PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1968. In 1999, she was honored to deliver the Garnett Sedgewick Memorial Lecture in honor of the department's 80th anniversary. She taught Canadian literature in the English department at Simon Fraser University from 1968 to 2005 when she retired as J.S. Woodsworth Resident Scholar, Humanities. She was part of a seventies movement to establish the study of Canadian literature and, in 1973, cofounded the Association for Canadian and Québec Literatures (ACQL). She was Chair of the inaugural meeting of ACQL. She initiated textual studies of the poems of E. J. Pratt in the eighties, was editor of Poetry, "Letters in Canada" for the University of Toronto Quarterly (1980-4), and Chair of Canadian Heads and Chairs of English (1989).
The Abortion Caravan was a feminist protest movement formed by The Vancouver Women's Caucus in 1970 which travelled across Canada from Vancouver to Ottawa to advocate for increased access to legal abortion. A 1969 amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code legalized abortion under certain circumstances. Unhappy with this incremental step, the Abortion Caravan advocated for abortion to be completely removed from the Criminal Code. Upwards of 300 supporters gathered in Ottawa on Parliament Hill and at the residence of the prime minister at the time, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, to protest the amendment. The Abortion Caravan paved the way for future abortion activism as well as helped initiate a revocation of abortion laws in 1988. At the time of the abortion caravan there were also a number of anti-abortion organizations who wished to eliminate access to abortions in Canada. To this day, there are abortion rights and anti-abortion organizations working to promote their positions, including Action Canada's celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1970 Abortion Caravan.
Elizabeth Ball is a Canadian politician, actress, and founder of several theatre companies. She served on Vancouver city council 2005 to 2018.
Lynne Quarmby is a Canadian scientist, activist, and politician. She is a professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. She was a candidate for the Green Party of Canada in Burnaby North—Seymour in the 2015 federal election, and is the Green Party of Canada's Science Policy Critic.
Laiwan is a Zimbabwean interdisciplinary artist, art critic, gallerist, writer, curator and educator. Her wide-ranging practice is based in poetics and philosophy. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Zainub Verjee CM, is a Kenya-born Canadian video artist, curator, writer, arts administrator and public intellectual. She began her career in the Vancouver arts community of the 1970s, which was steeped in interdisciplinary, intermedia, and intercultural practices. Having made her mark as an emerging artist, she shifted the emphasis of her work to curatorial, administrative and policy arenas. Applying the insight, creativity and criticality of an artist, she has brought “institutional critique” into the workings of the institution itself. Deeply engaged with the UK’s British Black Arts, Tactical Video Movement, Third Cinema and the post-Bandung Conference decolonization, Verjee has been embedded in the history of women’s labour in British Columbia. In February 2020 she was awarded the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “outstanding contribution to the arts”. In 2021 she was conferred an honorary doctorate by the OCAD University recognizing her outstanding contribution to arts, racial and gender equity She was elected as a Senior Fellow of the Massey College at University of Toronto in the fall of 2021. Earlier she was appointed as McLaughlin College Fellow at the York University. In 2022 she was conferred Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, Halifax She was the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts given by Simon Fraser University, Burnaby in the Spring Convocation of 2023. Her contribution to the pioneering prison theatre program in Canada and for integral role in the formation of the British Columbia Arts Council was recognized by University of Victoria by conferring her with an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts in Spring Convocation in 2023.
The women's liberation movement in North America was part of the feminist movement in the late 1960s and through the 1980s. Derived from the civil rights movement, student movement and anti-war movements, the Women's Liberation Movement took rhetoric from the civil rights idea of liberating victims of discrimination from oppression. They were not interested in reforming existing social structures, but instead were focused on changing the perceptions of women's place in society and the family and women's autonomy. Rejecting hierarchical structure, most groups which formed operated as collectives where all women could participate equally. Typically, groups associated with the Women's Liberation Movement held consciousness-raising meetings where women could voice their concerns and experiences, learning to politicize their issues. To members of the WLM rejecting sexism was the most important objective in eliminating women's status as second-class citizens.
The Vancouver Women’s Caucus is Canadian feminist organization active from 1968 to 1971. The group founded an abortion awareness campaign which included the Abortion Caravan. The group was also responsible for shutting down Parliament for the first time in Canadian history. Other initiatives include advocacy for working women and hosting a peace conference with Indo-Chinese women.
Barbara Joyce Rae was a Canadian businesswoman. She was the first female chancellor of Simon Fraser University (SFU) and former CEO of Office Assistance.
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.
Evaleen Jaager Roy is a Canadian businesswoman.
Sonali Patel, also known as Alyy Patel, is a Canadian LGBTQ+ activist. She is best known for her research, advocacy, and public speaking engagements concerning the issues and experiences of Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel has made monumental strides for Queer South Asian diaspora in the Canadian LGBTQ+ movement. Patel is among the first to academically theorize and advocate for the culturally unique discrimination against Queer South Asian Women in North American LGBTQ+ Communities. Patel is a pioneer of research on Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel first coined the acronym 'QSAW' to abbreviate 'Queer South Asian Women' as a group or collective identity.
