Foreword: Wake-up Call
The Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals believes in the invaluable role of celebrating the work of our members through our annual Awards program. We are thrilled to congratulate the people behind this year’s award-winning projects, which are listed below in their respective award categories. As we continue to celebrate and inspire each other, our challenge moving forward is to address the gap in recognizing intangible cultural heritage, Indigenous cultural heritage, and the legacy of colonial policies and practices in heritage protection.
The Awards Committee strives to make incremental changes to improve the CAHP Awards program year after year. In 2018, we tried to experiment by holding the Awards Adjudication Day in Vancouver. Since then, we aim to organize the event at the host city of the Annual Conference so we could facilitate exciting deliberation between CAHP Professional members from coast to coast to coast and distinguished local practitioners. Each year, we continue to improve our selection of jury members to ensure that we gather different perspectives, knowledge and expertise, which ultimately reflects our commitment not only to professional excellence, but more importantly to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
In 2020, we did not anticipate that we had to prepare for substantial changes to the submission and adjudication process as a result of the pandemic. At best, the uncertainties and injustices that persist as we write these words provided us with a different lens to view the world around us – to try to unlearn our own bias and prejudice, and to reassess immediate and long-term priorities. It is challenging our profession to engage in critical retrospection.
In the words of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time”.
Elijah Karlo Sabadlan, Michael Scott, Craig Wadsworth
CAHP Awards 2020 Co-Chairs
CAHP Awards 2020 Co-Chairs
