Our First Decade
The Travers Fellowship marked its first decade with a special public event at the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre in downtown Ottawa on October 6, 2022.
More than 200 people, including several past recipients of the Fellowship and Jim Travers’ family (wife Joan and sons Patrick and Ben), turned out to hear from two of Jim Travers’ friends—longstanding supporters of the Fellowship who played key roles in raising the funds that endowed the $25,000-a-year Fellowship in perpetuity.
John Manley opened the evening with his memories of Jim Travers from the days when the two regularly crossed paths on Parliament Hill. Their friendship predated a distinguished political career that saw Manley serve between 1993–2004 in various portfolios—Minister of Industry, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister—under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
In remarks entitled “Engaging with a world in turmoil”, Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, shared his perspectives on Canada’s engagement and the value of diplomacy in confronting global challenges, from climate change to the war in Ukraine.
Moderator Nahlah Ayed, host of CBC Radio’s Ideas and a former foreign correspondent, followed up with an in-depth question-and-answer session with Rae.
The 2022 Travers Fellowship winners
The evening also formally recognized the 2022 Fellowship winners Andrea Woo from The Globe and Mail and freelance photographer Jesse Winter, both of Vancouver. Their project will explore how citizens can be integrated into professional disaster response teams in addressing environmental crises driven by climate change. They will travel to Australia to investigate that country’s approach to managing wildfires—which includes integrating citizens into fire response teams—as a model for Canadians confronting fires, floods and other extreme environmental events.
Photo Gallery
Photos: Fangliang Xu
