Another Rae day
Cathy Murphy-Jones

Former Premier of Ontario and leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party Bob Rae was the guest lecturer at the 25th Annual Easton-McCarney Memorial Lecture on Thursday.

Rae delivered his lecture entitled: "Social Democracy: Without Illusions" to a packed house at the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall.

Rae is the only speaker to return to the podium in the lecture series' 25 year history. He spoke in 1987 about the equality of women.

"I'm so honoured to be invited back twice. I only wish the people of Ontario had done the same thing," he quipped.

Rae spoke about social democracy in the new world order in his hour long lecture.

"It is fashionable to talk about the end or relevance for social democracy. I disagree. The values of social democracy are deep and embedded," Rae said.

He spoke about how humankind can take great lessons from the 20th century.

"The 20th century has been the most violent, dangerous, xenophobic and destructive century for a civilized society," he said. "Crimes have been committed in the name of progress. We should learn humility from the 20th century."

"There is a need to increase solidarity especially in the age of globalization. Commerce is moving so quickly. Canadians appear to be doing everything right and then our stock market went down 25 per cent," he said.

"There is one truth: The first priority and the first element in the new politics of solidarity is education. We have no alternative but to insist we are a learned society."

The Easton-McCarney Memorial Lecture was created in 1973. It is a living memorial to two Faculty of Social Work students, John Easton and Christopher McCarney, who were killed in an automobile accident in 1972.

The goal of the lecture series is to bring distinguished individuals to WLU to speak on social issues of interest to both professional social workers and the community as a whole.