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Abellas receive honorary doctorates from Bishop’s University

Bishop’s University will hold a special convocation ceremony on Friday, Oct. 17 in Centennial Theatre, wrote The Record (Sherbrooke, Que.) Oct. 17. Joining the graduating class will be two honorary doctor of civil law degree recipients: Rosalie Silberman Abella (Supreme Court justice) and York Professor Irving Abella (author and historian).

This will mark the first time Bishop’s University has awarded honorary doctorates to a husband and wife during the same ceremony. Rosalie Silberman Abella practised civil and criminal litigation until she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976. She subsequently chaired the Ontario Law Reform Commission and the Ontario Labour Relations Board, and was the sole commissioner and author of the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment.

Irving Abella is a history professor and the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry in York’s Faculty of Arts and a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program of the University of Ottawa. Abella was elected to the Order of Canada in 1994, to the Royal Society of Canada in 1993, and was awarded an honourary doctorate of law by The Law Society of Upper Canada in 2001.

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