Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Association

CANADA'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT: A HISTORY

The impetus to form the NLHRA began in Ottawa with plans to celebrate International Year for Human Rights (IYHR) in 1968. John Humphrey, Dean of Law at
McGill and the original drafter of the UDHR, and Kalmen Kaplansky, an executive
of the International Labour Organization, headed the Canadian Commission for
IYHR. Formed in 1967 and funded through the federal government’s Secretary of
State citizenship program, one of the Commission’s first tasks was to stimulate the
creation of provincial human rights committees to organize conferences and educational activities to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the UDHR. Humphrey sent letters to provincial premiers requesting their support.

The Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Committee was formed on 31
January 1968 at a public meeting initiated by the provincial government. It was attended by 23 volunteer groups, Peter Truman of the United Nations Association of
Canada, and 70 high school and university students. The meeting elected an executive composed of R.J. Greene and W.J. Noseworthy (co-chairs), Felix Murphy
(secretary), and J.E. Butler and Shannon O’Keefe (directors).A cabinet committee
was formed to consult with the executive and discuss recommendations for legislative action. It consisted of G.A. Frecker, F.W. Rowe, John Crosbie, Alex Hickman, W.J. Keough, Edward Roberts and J.G. Channing. A provincial grant of $7,500 and the composition of the committee reflected the importance the government placed on the event. Rowe was the influential Minister of Education (later appointed to the Senate); Crosbie was Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing; and Keough, the Minister of Labour, was a close friend of Smallwood and later drafted the provincial human rights code. Members of the Human Rights Committee spent the year speaking at school assemblies, encouraging clergy to discuss human rights in sermons, organizing a conference at Memorial University,
corresponding with community groups, and planning for a national conference in
December.

The provincial government’s interest in supporting a human rights association in Newfoundland soon waivered, and Dr. Biswarup Bhattacharya, a psychiatrist at Waterford Hospital, took control in 1969 of what was now known as the Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Association. Thanks to his efforts and those of a small group of dedicated activists, the NLHRA managed to thrive with limited funding and virtually no support staff. Mostly, the group’s early history involved taking calls from people who believed that their rights had been violated and directing them to the proper agency, such as the Human Rights Commission or the Workers Compensation Board. The organization was also able to take an active stance on local issues and implement change. It pressured the Minister of Justice in 1973 to destroy police photographs of protestors taken the year before in front of Confederation Building, and elicited a statement confirming that the RCMP was not keeping photographic files on protestors. Not only did it help secure an amendment to the equal pay provisions of the Human Rights Code noted earlier, but in the following year sex and marital status were added to the Code as prohibited grounds of discrimination. In 1978/9, the NLHRA made representations to the Minister of Justice in a successful bid to improve conditions at the St. John’s courtroom jail, and convinced the Mutual Life Insurance Company to remove a question regarding illegal drug use on insurance applications. During the same period the association teamed up with residents in rural Labrador to push the provincial government to stop uranium mining because of health and environmental dangers. In conjunction with its educational and referral activities, the NLHRA had demonstrated an ability to deal effectively with issues of local concern. The NLHRA would also distinguish itself as a tireless critic of the province’s denominational education system which was heavily influenced by the churches and, according to the NLHRA, violated the rights of non-Christians. Their efforts would bear fruit in two referendums in the 1990s that led to the full secularization of Newfoundland’s education system.

The NLHRA is still active today in St. John’s and is one of the oldest active rights associations in Canada.