By CKPG Today

UNBC Announces Honourary Degrees

Mar 29, 2018 | 12:23 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Former B.C. Supreme Court Justice and prominent lawyer Thomas Berger will be given an Honourary Degree during UNBC’s convocation ceremonies this spring.  

Berger became well known when he represented the Nisga in the Calder Case in Supreme Court.  The Nisga won the case which first established Aboriginal title and started the modern day treaty process in Canada.  Eventually, it led to the signing of the Nisga treaty in 2000 and self-government for the First Nation.  In 2013 he was counsel for the Manitoba Metis in the successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada for recognition of the promises of land for the Metis made by John A. Macdonald to Louis Riel in 1870. 

“My work has often involved me in Northern cases and Northern causes,” said Berger. “It is very gratifying to be honoured by UNBC, which has become a vital Northern institution.”

Lawrence Hill is a critically acclaimed author and screenwriter.  He will also receive an Honourary Degree May 25.  Hill has written ten books and received numerous awards including The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Hill is a creative writing Professor at the University of Guelph.  

He co-wrote the adaptation of the television miniseries ‘The Book of Negroes’ and won 11 Canadian Screen Awards in 2016. “As a former resident of British Columbia, and as a novelist who is now dramatizing the story of African-American soldiers who toiled in the most difficult conditions to help build the Alaska Highway in B.C. and Yukon in the Second World War, I’m honoured and delighted to be invited to address the convocating students at UNBC and receive an honorary degree,” said Hill.

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Both men are members of the Order of Canada.

They will receive their Honourary Degrees at the 2018 convocation at the University of Northern British Columbia’s Prince George campus May 25.

In addition to the ceremonies in Prince George, UNBC is scheduled to hold Regional Celebrations in Gitwinksihlkw on May 28, Terrace on May 29 and Quesnel on May 31.