CRRF announces new initiative on International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

TORONTO, March 20, 2014 /CNW/ - The Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) today calls upon all Canadians to take special note of, and join with other concerned Canadians in marking March 21 as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Created as part of the Japanese-Canadian Redress Agreement, the CRRF's mandate is to help eliminate racism and all forms of racial discrimination in Canada. In addition to ongoing activities in pursuit of this goal, over the last few years in particular, the CRRF has taken a number of significant initiatives across Canada.

Today the CRRF is proud to launch a new resource area dedicated to "Imported Conflict", an emergent arena of study and public discourse that encompasses immigration, citizenship, multiculturalism and approaches to social and economic integration, and is essential to our understanding of what still needs to be done to promote integration and civic participation of Canadians of all origins.

The first document to be included in the special resource collection will be the Mosaic Institute's recently released report, The Perception & Reality of "Imported Conflict" in Canada, and its abundant resources. The report is the culmination of a two-year study of Canadians' perceptions and concerns about "imported conflict" in Canada. The report provides an interesting perspective as an initial endeavour, and the CRRF looks forward to examining and gathering further research in this area.

The CRRF's online list of resources is dedicated to race relations, the promotion of Canadian identity, belonging and the mutuality of citizenship rights and responsibilities. This is an extensive and ever-growing catalogue of over 4,000 periodicals, reports, books, organizational pamphlets, study guides, videos and other media, indexed according to specific categories. It can be searched or browsed by anyone with Internet access at www.crrf-fcrr.ca.

In commemorating the International Day, Albert Lo, Chairperson of the CRRF noted, "that inherent human dignity is the central pillar of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) … Where there is genuine mutual respect for our shared humanity and the dignity inherent in it, our rights will naturally be upheld."

SOURCE: Canadian Race Relations Foundation

For further information on this and other CRRF initiatives: Rubin Friedman, Spokesperson for CRRF, 647-403-8526