The key to fostering diversity comes from within both government and non-government institutions, says Ujjal Dosanjh, former B.C. premier and the next speaker in the free President's Lecture Series at the University College of the Fraser Valley .  

Mr. Dosanjh, who served as premier from 2000 to 2001 and is currently practicing law in Vancouver, will speak at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 8, on the UCFV Abbotsford campus in the Main Lecture Theatre, room B101. The theme of this year's series is The Power of Diversity.  

"I'll be talking about how government and non-government institutions need to play a role in making the acceptance of diversity greater than it is today," Dosanjh says.  

"The answer is not necessarily passing laws or enforcing quotas, but making sure you create an environment where diversity is more robustly accepted than it is today," he says. "These institutions - including universities - have an obligation to create environments where everyone feels at home."  

Born in India in 1947, Mr. Dosanjh emigrated to England at the age of 17 and came to Canada four years later. When a serious back injury left him unable to continue working at a Vancouver sawmill, Mr. Dosanjh enrolled at Langara College and subsequently completed a degree in political science at Simon Fraser University. He earned a law degree at the University of British Columbia and established a law practice in Vancouver in 1979.

First elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington in 1991, Mr. Dosanjh went on to serve as Minister of Government Services and Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, Human Rights, Sports and Immigration in 1995, and as Attorney General from August 1995 to February 2000, when he was sworn in as B.C.'s 33rd premier, and Canada's first Indo-Canadian premier.  

Sponsored in part by the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, the UCFV President's Lecture Series is open to the public and admission is free. For more information and a list of upcoming speakers in the President's Lecture Series, visit www.ucfv.ca/lectures

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