Dr. Eric Hoskins of Simcoe, Ontario has been selected as the recipient of the Pearson Peace Medal for 1992 by jury of eminent Canadians. His Excellency the Right Honorable Ramon John Hnatyshyn, Governor General of Canada, in his capacity as the Honorary Patron of the united Nations Association in Canada presented the medal to Dr. Eric Hoskins on October 24, 1994 (UN Day) during a ceremony that was held in the Manitoba Legislative Building, in Winnipeg.

UNA-Canada consists of 24 branches and some 15 000 members and supporters across Canada. Each year, the Association awards the Pearson Peace Medal to a Canadian who has personally contributed, through his or her life and voluntary commitments, to those causes to which Lester B. Pearson devoted his distinguished career: aid to the developing world, mediation between those confronting one another with arms, succour to refugees and others in need, equal rights and justice for all humanity, and peaceful change through world law and world organization.

Dr. Eric Hoskins, 31, is the youngest recipient of the Pearson Peace Medal. the choice of Dr. Hoskins is a tribute to his remarkable involvement over the last five years in providing basic health care to children displaced by war in the Horn of Africa, using his medical training to help improve the welfare of some of the world’s poorest citizens. Dr. Hoskins spent much of the past two years providing humanitarian aid to postwar Iraq. He was a major advocate, along with the Canadian Council for International Cooperation and others, in convincing the Canadian Government to release $2 million in Iraqi assets frozen in Canada to buy supplies for the children who were dying in Iraq due to UN sanctions. A Rhodes scholar, Dr. Hoskins has pursued Ph.D. studies at Oxford University in Public Health Epidemiology, devoting his thesis to Childhood Measles in Sudan. He was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow, the Rotary International’s highest distinction “in appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given for furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations between peoples of the world.”

Dr. Hoskins’ name has now been added to the outstanding list of the Pearson Medal’s recipients: Paul-Émile Cardinal Léger (1979), J. King Gordon (1980), E.L.M. Burns (1981), Hugh L. Keenleyside (1982), Most Reverend Georges-Henri Lévesque (1983), George Ignatieff (1984), the Very Rev. Lois Wilson (1985), Meyer Brownstone (1986), Nancy Meek Pocock (1987), Archbishop Edward Scott (1988), Maurice Strong (1989), Murray Thomson (1990) and Mrs. Muriel Duckworth (1991).

The 1992 Pearson Peace Medal Jury included: Stephen Andrew, Partner, Peat Marwick Kellogg & Stevenson, and the Past National Treasurer of UNA-Canada; Lyse Blanchard, Executive Director, CUSO; Margaret Catley-Carlson, Deputy Minister, Health & Welfare Canada; Adrienne Clarkson, anchorperson at the CBC Television; Geoffrey Pearson, diplomat and Past Executive Director of CIIPS (and the son of Lester B. Pearson); Gordon Fairweather, Chairman, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; Désirée McGraw, student, recently Youth Ambassador for the Earth Summit; and Jodi White, President, Sydney House. The National President and Information Officer of UNA-Canada, Geoffrey Grenville-Wood and Joan Broughton, were respectively Chairman and Secretary of the 1992 Jury.