Pascale Fournier to receive Special Achievement Award for Academic Excellence and Contribution to Humanity from the Canada Arab Chamber of Commerce

Professor Fournier was chosen by the Canada Arab Chamber of Commerce (CanACC), a platform that aims at building commercial links and stimulating cultural exchanges between Canada and the Arab world, to receive a Special Achievement Award that rewards academic excellence and humanitarian contributions.

The Chamber of Commerce wishes, with this distinction, to underline the impact of Professor Fournier’s scholarship on demystifying  cultural diversity and on fostering an enriched understanding of multiple issues pertaining to Canadian multiculturalism. Pascale Fournier’s commitment to women of religious minorities precedes her legal career, taking source in a long stay in Egypt that made profoundly aware of the reality of Arab women. Whether through her ethnographic research among Muslim women living in secular societies or through fieldwork and conferences given on legal reforms in Lebanon, or even through legal expertise lent to the United Nations Development Programme, Professor Fournier always aspires to give a greater voice to marginalized women in an intercultural dialogue that directly concerns them. Me Fournier, Lawyer Emeritus (Ad.E.) of the Quebec bar, also  acts as an expert witness relatively to the application of Islamic law in numerous trials in Canada and the United States. The Chamber of Commerce wishes to celebrate her commitment to building a community that is both inclusive and sensitive to gender discrimination.

The following speech was given by Pascale when she received this prestigious award on September 27th, in Toronto, at the 2nd Annual CanACC Excellence Awards Gala, which will gather around 400 hundred guests. Arab Ambassadors in Canada, Canadian government officials and eminent members of the Arab community, among others, will attend the event.