Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism

Book excerpt: J.S. Woodsworth, a founding member and leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party) and member of Parliament, was a social policy pioneer who promoted human welfare and rights over interests of property and finance. Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism explores the significance of Woodsworth's thoughts and achievements in the area of human rights in the light of current social welfare objectives and practices. Canadians continue to grapple with the question of how to accommodate and reconcile social diversity and difference while articulating a common interest and advancing human rights, both domestically and internationally. The essays in this volume, by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, address such issues as globalization, labour rights and law, the gendered and racialized dimensions of transnational labour, the relationship between human rights, social programs, and social rights, and the emergent cultural politics of difference. Through engagement with longstanding debates on the ideals and provisions for social justice we have come to associate with Woodsworth, the essays consider the present significance of a human rights frame, and examine the historical and contemporary exclusions to polity that occur around gender, ethnicity, class, and race.