Canadian Armenian Students Hold Second Annual Convention

KINGSTON, Canada—On Sun., May 2, 40 students from universities across Canada gathered in Kingston, Ontario, for the second annual Canadian Armenian Students’ Convention. The convention, titled the “Canadian Armenian Student and His/Her Challenges,” took place in Kingston’s Holiday Inn Waterfront Hotel and was organized by Armen Karo Student Association. The students were invited to represent the Armenian Student Associations (ASA) of their respective universities, and each association had an opportunity to present their successes and failures of the past year. 

Armenian students from 10 universities and colleges

The opening remarks were made by Daniel Ohanian, the MC of the convention and an Armen Karo Student Association member, who pointed out the existence of many obstacles to the initiatives taken by ASA’s in various universities, as well as the importance of collaborative work in ensuring the successful engagement of Armenian youth in all aspects of university life.

The first speaker of the convention was Peter Milliken, a Member of Parliament for Kingston and speaker of the House. Milliken thanked the organizing body for taking the initiative to bring together youth from different provinces. He spoke about the important role university students can play in the Canadian political arena, and how effective political activism in universities can be. He noted the importance of being conscious of politics in Canada, and being active in order to influence the decisions made by MP’s such as himself.

The ASA’s from each university had prepared a presentation of the work they had done over the past year, and were given the opportunity to present them, bringing to light the difficulties they faced, as well as methods they had found to overcome them. The existence of mutual obstacles became clear, and allowed the students to become better familiarized with the work of other ASA’s. The main challenges faced were noted, and were later used as topics for the workshop portion of the convention.

The second speaker of the convention, Armen Karo Student Association chairman Kevork Kazanjian, spoke about the role of the Armenians student in universities. He touched on the work being done by the active Turkish lobby funded by the state of Turkey, bringing examples from genocide denial events held in the Ryerson, McGill, and the University of Toronto.

The last portion of the convention was a workshop that promoted the discussion of major obstacles noted from the presentations. The students were divided into groups to discuss possible solutions to the issues, and later presented their recommendations to the group. 

Daniel Ohanian concluded the convention by thanking everyone present on behalf of the Armen Karo Student Association. Eleven ASA’s were represented at the event, from the University of Toronto St. George Campus, University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, York University, Ryerson University, University of Waterloo, McMaster University, McGill University, Univeristé de Montreal, Concordia University, University of Ottawa, and Carleton University.

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