McGill University to award four honorary degrees at Fall 1997 convocation

McGill University will confer honourary degrees on four eminent leaders in their fields at its Fall Convocation:

Thursday, October 30, 1997
2:30 p.m.
Salle Wilfrid Pelletier
Place des Arts

D.Sc. Dame Cicely Saunders, O.M., D.B.E., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. Through a unique combination of training as a nurse, social worker and physician, coupled with keen insight and infectious dedication, Dr. Saunders has led the worldwide revolution in palliative care. In so doing over the past fifty years, she has gained a place among the small but illustrious band of physicians who have left a permanent imprint on the history of their times. The fecundity of Dr. Saunders work has been remarkable. In 1967, she opened the "home for the dying", St. Christopher’s Hospice, in Southeast London. This was the first centre to bring to the setting of terminal illness academic excellence with its equal weighting on patient/family care, research and teaching. Her teaching and example has resulted in thousands of hospice and palliative care programs around the world and has helped shift health care from the traditional biomedical model to attention to the whole person involving body, mind and spirit.

D.Litt. Robert Lepage. Born in Quebec City in 1957, where he trained at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique, Robert Lepage is an internationally renowned actor, solo stage performer, playwright, designer, and theatre, film, and opera director. He is a former Artistic Director of French Theatre at the National Arts Centre. Lepage’s work has been regularly presented in prestigious national and international venues including the Royal National Theatre in London, the London International Festival of Theatre, The Avignon Festival in France, the International Theatre Festival in Chicago, the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Stockholm), the Adelaide Arts Festival in Australia, the Tokyo Globe Theatre, the Natonal Arts Centre in Ottawa, Toronto’s World Stage Festival, and both the Théâtre du Nouveau-Monde and the Festival de théâtre des Amériques in Montreal.

LL.D. Marie-Claire Kirkland-Strover, C.M., C.Q., Q.C., B.A.(McGill 1947) B.C.L.(McGill 1950), LL.D.(Hon.). For much of her career as a lawyer, politician, and judge, Marie-Claire Kirkland has lead the movement for women’s rights in Quebec, showing intelligence, initiative, and personal courage. Elected to the Quebec Legislative Assembly in 1961, she became the first woman to hold a seat in the Quebec Legislature. Later she became the first woman to hold a cabinet post and the first to serve as Acting Premier. In government, one of Ms. Kirkland-Strover’s major contributions was Bill 16 (adopted on July 1, 1964), giving married women of Quebec full dignity and human rights (allowing for the first time, for example, a married woman to sign a contract without her husband’s consent). Later, while in opposition in 1969, she worked on the revision of the Civil Code and introduced Bill 10, which aimed to end patriarchal power in the family. Upon retiring from politics in 1973, she was appointed a Judge of the Provincial Court -- the first woman appointed.

LL.D. His Excellency The Right Honourable Roméo LeBlanc, P.C., C.C., C.M.M., C.D. A former teacher and journalist (including stints as Press Secretary to Prime Ministers Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliot Trudeau), Mr. LeBlanc was first elected to the House of Commons in 1972, representing Westmorland-Kent, New Brunswick. For ten years he served as Minister of the Crown, holding successively the portfolios of Minister of State (Fisheries), Minister of Fisheries and the Environment, Minister of Fisheries snd Oceans, and Minister of Public Works. Mr. LeBlanc was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1984, where he became Speaker in 1993. He is the recipient of numerous honourary awards and, in 1995, became Governor General of Canada. Among the many responsibilities that this office fulfills is that of Visitor to McGill University.