The Honourable Landon Pearson

SHAKING THE MOVERS is an initiative spearheaded by the Honourable Landon Pearson, a prominent advocate for children and director of the Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children's Rights.

In 1979, Senator Pearson was Vice-Chairperson of the Canadian Commission for the International Year of the Child and Editor of the Commission's report, For Canada's Children: National Agenda for Action. From 1984 to 1990, she was President, then Chairperson of the Canadian Council on Children and Youth. She was a founding member and Chairperson of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children until she was appointed to the Senate, September 1994. She is a director of the Centre for the Study of Children at Risk at McMaster University; a delegate to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, September 1995; a delegate to the First World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm, August 1996 and to the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Yokohama, December 2001; the alternate head of the Canadian delegation to the International Child Labour Conference in Oslo, October 1997; the co-chair of Out From the Shadows: International Summit of Sexually Exploited Youth in Victoria, British Columbia, March 1998; the co-chair of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access which drafted the report entitled For the Sake of the Children, 1998; and head of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, May 2002.

In May 1996, Senator Pearson was named Advisor on Children's Rights to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. She provides advice to the Minister on children's issues in the foreign policy context and on the impact of domestic policies for children on Canada`s international commitments, notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In June 1999, she was named Personal Representative of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children.

Over the years, Senator Pearson has worked with children's groups in France, Mexico, India and the Soviet Union as the spouse of a Canadian diplomat. She is the author of a book on children in the former Soviet Union, Children of Glasnost (1990), and Letters from Moscow (2003), as well as numerous articles on child-related issues. In addition, she has received a number of awards for her outstanding work on behalf of children.

Senator Pearson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1951 with a B.A. in Philosophy and English and from the University of Ottawa in 1978 with a M.Ed. in Psychopedagogy. She received an honourary doctor of laws from Wilfrid Laurier University in May 1995, an honourary doctor of laws from the University of Victoria in November 2001, as well as an honourary degree of Doctor of the University (D.U.) from the University of Ottawa in June 2002, and an honourary LL.D from Carleton University in June 2003, for her work on children`s rights.

She and her husband have five children and eleven grandchildren.