Media Releases

Reform Party founder Preston Manning to receive honorary degree

June 1, 2010

TORONTO, ON. – The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to will award renowned Cana­di­an politi­cian Pre­ston Man­ning on Thurs­day, June 3, 2010 at 10 a.m. with an hon­orary doc­tor of laws degree in recog­ni­tion of his con­tri­bu­tions to pol­i­tics and pub­lic pol­i­cy in Cana­da as well as his advo­ca­cy for sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and inno­va­tion.

Pre­ston Man­ning served as a Mem­ber of the Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment from 1993 to 2001.  Dur­ing this time he found­ed two polit­i­cal par­ties – the Reform Par­ty of Cana­da and the Cana­di­an Reform Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance – both of which became the offi­cial Oppo­si­tion in the Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment. Man­ning served as Leader of the Oppo­si­tion from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party’s crit­ic for Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy. In 2007 he was made a Com­pan­ion of the Order of Cana­da.

Man­ning has served as a Dis­tin­guished Vis­i­tor of both the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. Cur­rent­ly, he is Senior Fel­low of the Fras­er Insti­tute and Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Man­ning Cen­tre for Build­ing Democ­ra­cy. He con­tin­ues to write, speak, and teach on a vari­ety of sub­jects includ­ing the revi­tal­iza­tion of democ­ra­cy and Cana­di­an con­ser­vatism, strength­en­ing rela­tions between the sci­en­tif­ic and polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties, the appli­ca­tion of mar­ket mech­a­nisms to envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion, and the man­age­ment of the inter­face between faith and pol­i­tics.

Mem­bers of the media are invit­ed to attend the con­vo­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny, but seat­ing is very lim­it­ed and advance con­fir­ma­tion of atten­dance is required. Please RSVP to U of T media rela­tions at 416–978-0100 no lat­er than 5 p.m. on Wednes­day, June 2.

WHAT:    Pre­ston Man­ning to receive hon­orary degree at spring con­vo­ca­tion.

WHEN:    Thurs­day, June 3, 2010 at 10 a.m. Media need to RSVP in advance and should arrive no lat­er than 9:45 a.m. to ensure seat­ing.

WHERE:  Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Con­vo­ca­tion Hall, 31 King’s Col­lege Cir­cle.

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For more infor­ma­tion and to RSVP:

con­tact media rela­tions at 416–978-0100