ERNA PARIS, C.M., passed away on February 3, 2022. She was the author of seven acclaimed works of literary non-fiction and the winner of twelve national and international writing awards for her books, feature writing, and radio documentaries. Her works were published in fourteen countries and translated into eight languages. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History was chosen as one of “The Hundred Most Important Books Ever Written in Canada” by the Literary Review of Canada. In June 2008 Long Shadows inspired the Canadian House of Commons motion to apologize, on behalf of the government, to survivors of Canadian residential schools. In June 2002 it inspired a resolution in the United States House of Representatives to create a monument to American slaves on the Washington Mall. (For more information, please see Awards and Honours.)
The Sun Climbs Slow: The International Criminal Court and the Struggle for Justice was first on The Globe and Mail's “best book of the year” list and shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Her final book was From Tolerance to Tyranny: A Cautionary Tale from Fifteenth-Century Spain.
Erna was a member of the Honorary Council of the Canadian Centre for International Justice; a member of the Canada Committee of Human Rights Watch; an executive member of the World Federalist Movement-Canada; a vice-president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and a past chair of the Writers' Union of Canada. Erna was a frequent contributor to the opinion page of the Globe and Mail. In 2012, she was awarded the World Federalist Movement – Canada World Peace Award. In 2015 she was appointed to the Order of Canada.
Read Erna’s obituary in the Globe and Mail.
By Patrick Martin, The Globe and Mail, February 7, 2022
Erna Paris, a long-time Globe and Mail columnist and leading writer on human rights and conflict resolution, was a fortunate woman. On Remembrance Day, 1960, at the age of 22, her life’s work was laid out for her. She just didn’t know it yet. [more]
September 14, 2021, The Globe and Mail
In his famous 14th-century work The Inferno, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri created a special abode in hell for wily flatterers. He considered sycophancy a wrongdoing against the entire community – a deceit with the potential to alter society for the worse.
Dante might have nodded knowingly had he observed Canada’s leader-courtiers line up to pay obeisance to Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet’s defense of the indefensible during last week’s federal election debates. The quid pro quo was each leader’s personal support for Bill 21, the Quebec legislation that prohibits the display of religious symbols by public-sector workers in the workplace, in return for potential electoral support in the province. [more]
Saturday June 11, 2021, The Globe and Mail
Two Solitudes. That was the title of Hugh MacLennan’s famous 1945 book about the chasm between Quebec and the “Rest of Canada” – a fault line that has been negotiated continuously since the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. But what if there were three solitudes all along, the third being the Indigenous nations that were suffering cultural decimation far below the radar of most Canadians? I was born and raised in Ontario and never heard, or read, a word about residential schools during close to two decades of schooling. Textbooks referenced the original Indian wars, but what happened to the Indigenous populations as the entity known as Canada emerged was obscured. [more]
Erna Paris was the author of seven acclaimed books of literary non-fiction and the winner of twelve national and international writing awards. More »
Erna Paris was invested into the Order of Canada by Governor General David Johnston in September 2016.South African court orders arrest of Sudanese leader
CBC News
June 14, 2015
International Criminal Court expert Erna Paris says the detention of Omar al-Bashir in South Africa for alleged war crimes is unprecedented.
Reconciliation South Africa
CBC Radio 1
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Erna Paris speaks with the CBC's Matt Galloway about Canadians coming to terms with a shameful legacy, this country's residential schools and their impact on First Nations communities.
From Tolerance to Tyranny
CBC Radio 1, 9:00 pm,
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together in relative harmony in medieval Spain. Then the Spanish Inquisition came along with its use of terror and racism, turning a pluralistic society into a police state. Writer Erna Paris first explored this history for IDEAS in 1995. In a new take, she calls what happened in Spain “a cautionary tale for today.”
