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LANGUAGE RIGHTS CONFERENCE and FILM FESTIVAL
The Canadian Languages Rights Conference is envisioned to be a gathering place for language rights stakeholders – individuals, institutions and organizations (profit, non-profit, NGOs), academia and various levels of government interested in official, Indigenous and non-official languages spoken in Canada, This conference will provide opportunities to meet, share, learn from each other and collaborate on projects that promote language rights advocacy.
​​The very first 2021 Conference will take place virtually, although the majority of our coalition members as well as our core team is physically based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the most linguistically diverse city in Canada with over 50 percent of the population being born outside of the City and speaking a first language other than English.
KEY NOTE: MIN SOOK LEE
Min Sook Lee is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and political activist. She has directed numerous critically-acclaimed feature documentaries, including: Donald Brittain Gemini winner Tiger Spirit, Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature winner Hogtown, Gemini nominated El Contrato and Canadian Screen Award winner, The Real Inglorious Bastards. In 2012, the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts named the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award in Lee's honour for her contribution to the cause of migrant workers, citing her work to "engage non-arts audiences, and that challenges Eurocentric notions of art"
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​Lee is an Associate Professor at OCAD University, her area of research and practice focuses on the critical intersections of art+social change in labour, border politics, migration and social justice movements.
CLOSING REMARKS: LINDSAY KEEGITAH BORROWS
Lindsay Keegitah Borrows has ancestral roots spread across England, some of whom came to Canada as early colonial settlers, and others as more recent Canadian immigrants. She is also of Anishinaabe descent and is a citizen of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, located in southwestern Ontario. Her work as a lawyer, writer and teacher focuses on supporting Indigenous communities to revitalize their traditional laws for application in a contemporary context.
In addition to law, her passion for story-telling and language revitalization led her to publish a book of creative non-fiction entitled, “Otter’s Journey through Indigenous Language and Law” (UBC Press, 2018).
