Keynote & Workshop Descriptions
Seeking Justice in our Institutions is a virtual conference being convened using Zoom. All workshops will have dial-in options and automatic closed captioning available. Please note that automatic captioning does not always accurately capture the words of people from countries beyond Turtle Island/North America, those for whom English is a second language, or those whose speech is affected by a disability.
Please let us know if you have any accessibility or accommodation requests, including translation or interpretation, when you complete your registration form. You may also contact Natalie Appleyard with any questions.
Recordings of ALL workshops and keynotes will be made available to ALL conference participants within 48 hours. All keynotes and workshops will be recorded in speaker view.
Wednesday, May 25 - Opening Keynote
4pm PT / 5pm MT / 6pm CT
7pm ET / 8pm AT / 8:30pm NT
90 minutes, including moderated Q&A
Seeking Justice in Our Institutions: Where Do We Begin?
Bernadette Arthur, Co:Culture Collective
Bernadette Arthur (she/her) is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and consultant in the areas of anti-racism, Biblical reconciliation and asset-based community development. She specializes in designing and facilitating learning events that offer brave space to listen, interrogate, unpack, explore, create, and heal: as local as Hamilton, Ontario, and as far as Johannesburg, South Africa. Bernadette is an Afro-Caribbean woman whose family migrated to Turtle Island from Trinidad and Tobago in the early 70s, and a leader instrumental in co-organizing emerging movements in those engaged in racial justice, healing, and reconciliation work. She brings her rich lived experience, academic background in psychology, decades of working in the human services sector, and commitment to love and liberation into every space that she enters. Learn more about Bernadette's work at Co:Culture Collective.
Thursday, May 26 - Daytime Workshops
10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT
1pm ET / 2pm AT / 2:30pm NT
60 minutes, including moderated Q&A.
Environmental Racism & Climate Justice
Dr. Ingrid Waldron
Dr. Ingrid Waldron (she/her) was born in Montreal, Quebec to Trinidadian parents. She is Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. Dr. Waldron’s research, teaching and community advocacy work focus on the structural and environmental determinants of health and mental health disparities in Black, Indigenous, immigrant and refugee communities in Canada, including environmental racism, climate inequities, mental illness, and COVID-19.
CPJ wishes to thank the Anglican Diocese of Niagara for their generous support of this workshop.
Justice for Refugees & Migrants
Dr. Evelyn Encalada Grez
Sarom Rho, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
Dr. Encalada Grez (she/her) is a transnational labour scholar, community-labour organizer and Latinx educator. She is an Assistant Professor in Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University and co-founder of the award wining collective, Justice for Migrant Workers, J4MW that has advocated for the rights of migrant farmworkers in Canada for two decades. Dr. Encalada Grez has mobilized her research through various media such as documentaries and given talks in venues such as Parliament Hill, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and at the United Nations in New York. Her work is driven by her immigrant working class experiences and a commitment to decolonializing and transformative pedagogies.
Sarom Rho (she/her) is an organizer with Migrant Students United at the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, a workers' rights organization with a membership of migrants in farm work, care work and low-waged work, which include current and former international students, refugees and undocumented people.
Housing, Inclusion, & Institutions
Victoria Levack
Erin Dej
Erin Dej (she/her) is a Professor in the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has been doing research on homelessness for over a decade, focusing on how to create meaningful inclusion for people who have experienced homelessness, with the ultimate aim of preventing and ending homelessness in Canada. Previously, she was the Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. She is the author of A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada.
Victoria Levack (she/her) is a 31 year old disability and human rights activist who focuses on the right to housing in the community. She is spokesperson for the disability rights coalition of Nova Scotia as well as the PADS community advocacy network. She is a passionate public speaker and always strives to do what is best for her community. She recently had the opportunity to speak to Provincial government to offer her thoughts on Bill 96 which is the new Anti-discrimination and hate bill being developed for Nova Scotia. She has also had some experience in front of the camera and has been involved in several documentary films and her first fiction role in Spencer McKay’s film, Interabled, which will be premiering this summer. For more information on her work or to book her for speaking engagements email vicky_levack@hotmail.com.
CPJ wishes to thank the Canadian Poverty Institute for their generous sponsorship of this workshop.
"Coffee Break" Discussion Groups
11am PT / 12pm MT / 1pm CT
2pm ET / 3pm AT / 3:30pm NT
60 minutes with flexible timing - please feel free to come and go.
"Coffee break" discussion groups are a chance to connect with other conference participants through informal sharing and chatting about what you've been learning at the conference. Ask questions, share your insights, network, and get to know other justice-minded folks from across the country! BYOC (Bring Your Own Coffee)!
Thursday, May 26 - CPJ Annual General Meeting
3pm PT / 4pm MT / 5pm CT
6pm ET / 7pm AT / 7:30pm NT
60 minutes
CPJ's Annual General Meeting is a chance to learn more about our work and operations. While this meeting is open to the public, only CPJ members will have the ability to vote on Board of Director nominees, financial statements, and any other business. Members can expect to receive direct communication from CPJ with more information about the AGM, including voting procedures and the Zoom link.
You can become a CPJ member with an annual financial contribution of any amount. For more information about becoming a CPJ member, click here!
Thursday, May 26 - Release of CPJ's Equity & Anti-Oppression Statement & Commitments
Option 1 - Eastern time zones
4pm PT / 5pm MT / 6pm CT
7pm ET / 8pm AT / 8:30pm NT
Option 2 - Western time zones
7pm PT / 8pm MT / 9pm CT
10pm ET / 11pm AT / 11:30pm NT
90 minutes, including moderated Q&A.
Willard Metzger, Executive Director, CPJ, with respondents & moderated Q&A
For the past two years, CPJ's Board of Directors and staff have been engaged in a process of building shared understanding of, and commitment to, rights-based and intersectional approaches to seeking justice both at the domestic federal policy level, as well as within our own organization. Facilitated by Bernadette Arthur of Co:Culture Collective, we have been working together to develop a public Equity and Anti-Oppression Statement that will provide clarity, consistency, and accountability to current and prospective CPJ members, staff, volunteers, donors, and partners.
CPJ's Executive Director, Willard Metzger, will walk us through the rationale and contents of the statement, what it means for CPJ as an organization, and what it means for you, our members and broader community. The presentation will be followed by a panel of respondents and moderated Q&A.
Friday, May 27 - Daytime Workshops
10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT
1pm ET / 2pm AT / 2:30pm NT
60 minutes, including Q&A.
Activism & the Arts
Monica Dudárov Hunken
Monica Dudárov Hunken (she/her) is an activist, storyteller, and teacher who creates docu-adventure plays inspired by her international bicycle voyages. Monica has worked with environmental, bicycle advocacy group, Time’s-Up!; co-founded Occupy The Pipeline to organize creative direct action against the Spectra Pipeline in the West Village; was Action Captain for Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping for a decade; is a creative direct action trainer with Beautiful Trouble; is a training coordinator for Resist Spectra; and co-founded all-women bicycle dance troupe NYBike Dance. Monica is the recipient of the Petrolio Performance Art Award 2017 in recognition for her commitment towards addressing urgent social issues with artistic responses, as well as significant engagement with the audiences' needs in terms of resources for critical thinking and direct action. Learn more about Monica's work at http://www.monicahunken.com/.
Decolonizing Faith as Individuals & Institutions
Naaman Wood
Héctor Acero Ferrer
Naaman Wood (he/him) is Instructor of Communication at Saint Paul College in St. Paul, MN. After earning an MA and a PhD from Regent University, Naaman received a MTS and ThM from Duke Divinity School. His interdisciplinary scholarship has been published in the journals Symbolic Interaction, Jazz Perspectives, and the books Prophetic Critique and Popular Media: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications, More than “Precious Memories”: Critical Essays on the Rhetoric of Southern Gospel, and several chapters for the Critical Companion to Popular Directors series at Lexington Books. He has forthcoming monograph in that series titled A Critical Companion to Sofia Coppola, which he coauthored with musicologist Christopher Booth. He won the Journal of Christian Teaching Practice’s 2018 Quentin J. Schultze and Paul A. Soukup Faith-learning Integration Award for Outstanding Christian Scholarship in Communication Studies for his essay, “Analogy as a Strategy for Faith-learning Integration.” He also coedited Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu.
Héctor Acero Ferrer (he/him) is originally from Bogotá, Colombia and is pursuing doctoral studies at the Institute for Christian Studies, where he is exploring how Liberation Theology has contributed to the development of distinctive notions of justice and reconciliation in post-colonial Latin America, thereby assisting local civic movements in the pursuit of social transformation for vulnerable communities. Currently, Héctor serves as Associate Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies. Through his work at the CPRSE, Héctor collaborated in two multi-year research projects exploring the relation of faith and society funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In 2016, Héctor joined Martin Luther University College, Wilfrid Laurier University as an Adjunct Faculty member, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on intersectionality, theology, social justice, and youth engagement.
CPJ wishes to thank The Institute for Christian Studies for their generous sponsorship of this workshop.
Embodied Practices of Faith, Justice, & Solidarity
Billy J. Choi-Gekas
Billy J. Choi-Gekas (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race person of colour, 2nd generation Settler, born and mostly raised in Tkoronto (Toronto), and in adopted relations with their Anishinaabe family in Manitoba. They work in Public Services at the University of Toronto Libraries, is UTL's Chair of the "Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, Anti Racism (IDEAR)" Committee, and serves on the Board of Toronto Urban Native Ministries. Billy's main vocation is embodied in their 20+ years practice as a lineage-based and initiated Wholistic Practitioner & Educator (Anthroposophy, Ayurveda, Biodynamic Agriculture, Ethnoecology, Indigenous Herbalism, Jyotish, Medical Qigong, Reiki/LingQi, Yoga), and is under the mentorship of their Sifu Hon, Sat Chuen of the DanTao & Longmen (Dragon Gate) Taoist lineage, Elder Audrey Bone (Anishnisaabe), and Dr. Amruta Athale (Vedic). Billy is a member of The General Anthroposophical Society through the Goetheanum, and their academic work through the University of Toronto focused on Ecotheology, Indigenous Epistemology, and Decolonial/Anti-colonial Methodologies. You can connect with Billy and their School of Radical Healing & Sacred Activism at www.myradicalhealing.com
CPJ wishes to thank the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada for their generous sponsorship of this workshop.
"Coffee Break" Discussion Groups
11am PT / 12pm MT / 1pm CT
2pm ET / 3pm AT / 3:30pm NT
60 minutes with flexible timing - please feel free to come and go.
"Coffee break" discussion groups are a chance to connect with other conference participants through informal sharing and chatting about what you've been learning at the conference. Ask questions, share your insights, network, and get to know other justice-minded folks from across the country! BYOC (Bring Your Own Coffee)!
Friday, May 27 - Closing Keynote
12pm PT / 1pm MT / 2pm CT
3pm ET / 4pm AT / 4:30pm NT
90 minutes, including moderated Q&A.
Seeking Justice in our Institutions: Reimagining & Co-Creating Culture
Larissa Crawford, Future Ancestors Services, in conversation with
Bernadette Arthur, Co:Culture Collective
Larissa Crawford (she/her) proudly passes on Métis and Jamaican ancestry to her daughter, Zyra, and is a published Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, policy advisor, and restorative circle keeper with over 13 years of experience. Larissa is the Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led professional services social enterprise that operates at the intersection of climate and racial justice. Larissa is is open for speaking, training, consulting, holistic organizational change, and social media contracts internationally. She can be reached at larissa@futureancestors.ca, and you can connect with her at @larissa_speaks. She is currently based in Calgary, the Traditional Territory of Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani Nations), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe (Stoney) Nakoda Nations, and traditional homeland of the Métis Nation, Region 3.
Bernadette Arthur (she/her) is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and consultant in the areas of anti-racism, Biblical reconciliation and asset-based community development. She specializes in designing and facilitating learning events that offer brave space to listen, interrogate, unpack, explore, create, and heal: as local as Hamilton, Ontario, and as far as Johannesburg, South Africa. Bernadette is an Afro-Caribbean woman whose family migrated to Turtle Island from Trinidad and Tobago in the early 70s, and a leader instrumental in co-organizing emerging movements in those engaged in racial justice, healing, and reconciliation work. She brings her rich lived experience, academic background in psychology, decades of working in the human services sector, and commitment to love and liberation into every space that she enters. Learn more about Bernadette's work at Co:Culture Collective.