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Senator Nancy Ruth

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Did you know that...

• I'm a United Church Minister by training!
• I'm an activist! I'm an outspoken critic of poverty.
• I'm a defender of peace, women's and girl's rights, water and the environment!
• I'm an advocate of Canada's constitutional equality rights in public policy and institutions!
• I'm a supporter of organizations devoted to civil, legal, economic, political and cultural rights for women and girls in all their diversity, and...
• I am a woman who loves to dance, go to the theatre, kayak, and clown around!

Some Faves I Have Helped to Create and Run:

• section15.ca
• Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
• Canadian Women's Foundation
• The Linden School

Some Boards I've Been On:

• The Economic Council of Canada
• LEAF & The LEAF Foundation
• Mount St. Vincent University
• The Canadian Centre for Arms Control
• The Canada-USA Fulbright Foundation
• The International Institute of Concern for Public Health
• The Tarragon Theatre
• The Doctor's Hospital Foundation

Honours:

• Honorary degrees from York, Trent, Laurentian and Mount St. Vincent Universities
• Toronto YWCA Women of Distinction Award (1988)

• Fellow, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal (1991)
• Order of Canada (1994)
• Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Person's Case (1997)
• Government of Ontario's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Human Rights (1998)

• Hero Award, Metropolitan Community Church, Toronto (2000)
• South African Women for Women Friendship Award (2004)
• Charles Sauriol Greenspace Award, (2007)

Other:

As a businesswoman, I have been involved with residential land development and environmental products and WTN TV.

As a politician, I ran in Ontario for the Progressive Conservatives in 1990 and 1993. In 1988 I ran for a federal nomination and lost, but I was appointed to The Senate in 2005.  

In 1993, I was an international observer from Canada during the United Nations-supervised elections in Cambodia. 

I have lived and worked in England, Indonesia, The Netherlands, USA, British Columbia and in Toronto since 1978.

Speeches and Activities:

Since my appointment:

My office has worked with the Ad Hoc Committee of Canadian Women on the constitution in Ottawa, February 14 and 15, 2006.

I am currently a member of the Senate Human Rights and National Finance Committees. I am a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Burma, and other parliamentary groups. I am vice-chair of the Canada-UK Inter-Parliamentary Association.

I am working on changing the national anthem from "in all thy sons command" to "in all of us command". I raise issues like gender-based analysis and women, peace, and security everywhere I go.