The Latin American Mission Program (LAMP) of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlottetown invites all Islanders to the thirtieth annual Daniel O’Hanley Memorial lecture. It will take place on Sunday, November 13, 2:00 p.m. at Our Lady of the Assumption Church Hall, 151 Stratford Road, Stratford, PEI. The interactive lecture title is: Taking Action for Migrant Workers’ Rights: The Challenge in Front of Us.
This will be an in-person event for the first time in three years. However, those who feel more comfortable attending on-line may do so. Registration is required. Registration deadline is November 9, 2022. To register please email latinamericamissionprogram@gmail.com (Note: without the ‘n’ on America) or call Marie Burge 902-894-4573. Indicate if you will be attending in person or by Zoom.
The guest presenters are Eliza MacLauchlan and Ryan MacRae, both of whom are coordinators of Cooper Institute’s Island wide program on Migrant Workers’ Rights.
Ryan MacRae graduated with an Economics degree from Mount Allison University in 2017 and continued his studies at the University of Prince Edward Island where he received his Masters in Global Affairs in 2020. Ryan has worked for various small NGOs in Canada and in the Dominican Republic during his time on mission with LAMP.
Eliza MacLauchlan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2014 from the University of Prince Edward Island and is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in Island Studies. She has spent her adult life working with people and the laws that shape their lives.
This year’s memorial event is especially timely for three reasons: First: it is clear that across Canada and in PEI, governments have been slow in recognizing the wretched conditions in which many migrant workers live and work. Second: even when governments are advised over and over again, they keep in place policies (or lack thereof) which condone or ignore flagrant violations of workers’ rights. Third: because it is the everyday people who must oblige governments to have the political will to enact effective legislative policies to ensure respect for the rights of migrant workers and all workers. Canadian residents must demand that governments make collective human rights their highest concern.
Governments now acknowledge that the labour force is shrinking and that migrant workers, and all workers, are essential to the economic success of most enterprises in PEI. However, the incentive for policies to protect workers must be more principled than that our economy needs them. Good strong governments deliberately build their legislation around basic collective human rights.
This year’s Daniel O’Hanley Memorial is about the PEI community’s need to know the varied situations of migrant workers. However, Marie Burge, a member of the Latin American Mission Program and also of Cooper Institute states: “Yes, let’s be sure we increase our knowledge about the lives of migrant workers, how and why they come here, and how Canadian laws, and those of PEI, fail to protect them. But especially let’s have the courage together to be a strong voice for the rights of migrant workers. Always and everywhere. It is startling to be reminded that our silence is our consent. If our government fails in basic human rights, it is on our heads as Canadian (and Island) citizens.”
Each year since Daniel O’Hanley’s death on July 3, 1991, LAMP honours him and all Islanders by presenting the Daniel O’Hanley Memorial Lecture. Dan worked in very creative ways with a group of Nicaraguan men and women who were landless peasants. They had to migrate away from their home communities to find arable land. He learned with them how precarious their lives were simply because they were migrants. They had to uproot and migrate in their own country to try to eke out a living for their families. Dan was murdered in a botched robbery attempt. He is remembered for his courage and deep social justice convictions and actions. Daniel O’Hanley: Presente.