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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 13, 2001

SASKATOON - A. Wayne MacKay, President of Mount Allison University, has been named winner of the International Commission of Jurists' Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award.

"Wayne MacKay has made impressive achievements in the field of human rights in this country," says Madame Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé. "As a distinguished educator, researcher, public servant and constitutional lawyer, his record is unparalleled."

A resident of Sackville, New Brunswick, Mr. MacKay has pursued human rights and equality issues in an academic setting for more than 20 years. During that time, he has received many teaching awards, including the 1999 W. P. M. Kennedy Memorial Award as the top law professor in Canada. As an expert lawyer and legal consultant, he has written five books in educational law, and some 60 academic articles in the fields of constitutional law and human rights.

He is most notably recognized for his efforts as the founding director of the first Indigenous Black and Mi'kmaq Program at Dalhousie Law School in Halifax, and as director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission from 1995-98.

Mr. MacKay graduated from Mount Allison University in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and in 1972 with a Bachelor of Education. He received a Master of Arts in History from the University of Florida in 1971, and graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1978, receiving the gold medal for the highest standing in the class. In 1978-79, he was law clerk to the late Rt. Hon. Bora Laskin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He taught at Dalhousie Law School from 1979 - 2001.

Named in honour of the late Hon. Walter S. Tarnopolsky, a talented human rights advocate and scholar, the award recognizes a resident of Canada who has made an outstanding contribution to domestic or international human rights. The award takes the form of an inscribed bronze medallion and an honorarium of $1,000.

The award is presented at the annual meeting of the International Commission of Jurists, held on Monday, Aug. 13 at 3:30 p.m. in Centennial Room A, Saskatoon Centennial Auditorium, during the Canadian Bar Association Annual Conference. Mr. MacKay will deliver an address following presentation of the award by Madame Justice L'Heureux-Dubé.

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CONTACT: Patricia Whiting, Canadian Bar Association, 500 - 865 Carling Ave. , Ottawa, ON, K1S 5S8 Tel: (613) 237-2925, ext. 125; E-mail: patw@cba.org