Our Whole Society Conference Welcomes Keynote Speakers

The “Our Whole Society” conference will take place next year from May 8-9, 2017 at St. Paul University, Ottawa, Canada.  The event will also mark the 150th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation.  Participants will seek to discover “a new way of talking, thinking and acting together so that Canada’s religious diversity can become a resource for collective advancement.”

Our Whole Society program chair Geoffrey Cameron says, “We need a new way to talk together about the changing role of religion in Canadian society, and how religious and secular citizens can talk and work together for the common good. This, the third in a series of conferences, is fostering this conversation about religion and citizenship in Canada.”  

Conference organizers are excited to welcome two keynote speakers, Dr. John Borrows and Dr. John Ralston Saul.  Dr. Borrows is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School. He is Anishabe/Ojibway himself, and he is a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.

John Ralston Saul is a native of Ottawa, Ontario.  A novelist and essayist, he was president of PEN International, an association of prominent writers and editors, until October 2015.  His writings have influenced political and economic thought internationally, and he was listed as one of the world’s 100 top thinkers and visionaries on the prestigious Utne Reader’s list.