The CMU PAX Award, initiated in 2015 and awarded annually, was created to acknowledge and honour people who lead exemplary lives of service, leadership, and reconciliation in church and society.
2024 | Dr. Joss Reimer
Dr. Joss Reimer is Chief Medical Officer of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association. She is well-known as the former medical lead and official spokesperson for Manitoba's COVID-19 Vaccine Implementation Taskforce, through which she led the largest and most successful vaccine campaign in provincial history.
Reimer is a leader who embodies compassion, integrity, vision, and determination. Her previous work includes being medical director of public health for Winnipeg, a lead medical officer for the Government of Manitoba, and a director for the University of Manitoba’s undergraduate medical education program. She continues to operate a clinical practice in maternity care, labour, and delivery at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
Reimer comes from Winkler, MB and spent time living around the world studying language, political science, and international relations before earning her Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health. She is an expert in physician wellness, public health, infectious diseases, harm reduction, science communication, and much more.
CMU is inspired by Reimer’s willingness to face complex challenges for the health and the good of all, her passion for collaboration, her drive to improve the world, and her commitment to maintaining hope amidst crisis. Her dedication to promoting peace—that is, well-being, health, flourishing—in exemplary ways lies at the very heart of CMU’s mission.
[ News release ]
Past CMU PAX Award Recipients
César García is General Secretary of Mennonite World Conference (MWC), an organization that serves some 1.5 million members worldwide and 110 national church conferences (denominational bodies) in the Anabaptist tradition. García is from Bogotá, Colombia. He has been a church planter, pastor, and professor of Bible and theology. Before his election, García was chair of the Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas de Colombia (Mennonite Brethren Churches of Colombia) and the MWC Mission Commission secretary.
CMU is inspired by García and MWC as a whole in nurturing a global communion of churches. The MWC Shared Convictions are formative for CMU as a learning community that is rooted in the Anabaptist faith tradition through the coming together of ten (or more) Anabaptist denominational bodies and thirty other church and faith communities. CMU faculty and students participate directly in MWC commissions and events through the Peace Commission, the Global Anabaptist Higher Education Network, and global Assemblies.
The 2023 CMU PAX Award will be awarded by CMU President Cheryl Pauls to García on Saturday, April 28 as part of the 2023 Convocation Ceremony.
Watch the presentation of the award at youtube.com/watch?v=PJcOp0_SJuc.
[ News release ]
Dr. Terry and Bev LeBlanc are theologians and community organizers who have worked tirelessly to support the development of theological capacities in the Indigenous community. They have committed themselves to constructing intercultural relationships through education and development practices.
In the late 1990s, they, along with a larger group, collaboratively created and launched the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies, now known as NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community. Having dedicated themselves to the reclamation and healing of Indigenous identity, Terry and Bev also have co-founded several critical movements and organizations, including a rural church plant, an urban mission, and My People International (a ministry of Indigenous people dedicated to healing and restoration of identity).
Terry LeBlanc holds an interdisciplinary PhD from Asbury Theological Seminary and is an educator in theology and anthropology. He is the founding Chair and current Director of NAIITS and is CEO and Director of Indigenous Pathways, which provides support to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people, families, and communities. He also serves as adjunct professor at Tyndale Seminary and Wycliffe College, and teaches at George Fox University and Seminary (Portland, OR) and Acadia University and Divinity College (Wolfville, NS).
CMU President Cheryl Pauls describes Terry and Bev LeBlanc as having generated an expansive field of Indigenous theological scholarship, work that is vital to reckoning and transformation in the church today. CMU is grateful to Terry and Bev for being willing to receive the 2022 PAX Award and cherishes their wisdom and friendship.
[ News release ]
Presentation of the 2021 PAX Award to Senator Dr. Mary Jane McCallum, former residential school student, and past participant of the Canadian School of Peacebuilding took place on August 21, 2021 at CMU's convocation ceremony.
A citizen of Barren Lands First Nation in Brochet, MB, McCallum attended Guy Hill Residential School in The Pas, MB for 11 years. She went on to become a tireless advocate for social justice who has worked for decades to bring health care, specifically dental care, to northern Indigenous communities across Manitoba.
McCallum holds a Doctor of Dental Medicine from the University of Manitoba and is a member of the Manitoba Dental Association and the Canadian Dental Association. She has worked as a dental therapist, a professor, and a manager of many community health programs. She now practices dentistry at the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, near The Pas.
McCallum also shares her personal experience as a former residential school student through workshops and presentations. She became an independent senator, representing Manitoba in the Upper Chamber, in 2017.
[ story ]
[ Senator Dr. McCallum's biography ]
Rudy Wiebe, is best known for his novels set in the Canadian prairies and his representations of Indigenous people. He was awarded the Governor General's Award for Fiction twice, for The Temptations of Big Bear (1973) and A Discovery of Strangers (1994) and won the Charles Taylor Prize for Of This Earth: a Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest (2006).
In addition to writing books, the author has written numerous film and television scripts and has lectured and given readings internationally, in cities from Adelaide to Puerto Rico. For 30 years he taught literature and creative writing at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States, and Germany.
Now retired from teaching, his former students include such accomplished writers as Myrna Kostash, Aritha van Herk, Thomas Wharton, and Katherine Govier.
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[ WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ]
[ VIDEO PRESENTATION ]
Acclaimed Winnipeg singer-songwriter Steve Bell received the 2018 CMU PAX Award on April 15, 2018.
Bell is a songwriter, storyteller, and troubadour for our time. Over the course of a 25 year solo career, he has been sharing a message of love, hope and faith through songs, stories, and writings. He is a purveyor of truth and beauty and champion of kindness, on a focused mission to "encourage Christian faith and thoughtful living through artful word and song." He is a mentor to many, and an advocate of numerous meaningful causes.
Since 1989, Bell has released 20 albums and performed more than 1,500 concerts to over half a million people in 15 countries.
In recent years, Bell has used his platform to advocate for the building of Freedom Road, a 27-kilometre road that would end a century of isolation for the people of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. He has also been a strong voice urging the Canadian government to adopt Bill C-262, an act that would ensure that Canadian laws are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
[ news release ]
[ article | The Blazer magazine, fall 2017 ]
[ Video presentation ]
For nearly 30 years, Christian Peacemaker Teams has sought to build partnerships to transform violence and oppression around the world.
Today, CPT has regional groups in Europe; the United Kingdom; Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia); Philippines; Colorado; northern Indiana; and Ontario. CPT has around 30 full- and part-time, stipended peacemakers and nearly 200 part-time volunteers who serve in violence-reduction projects around the world.
Envisioning a world of communities that together embrace the diversity of the human family and live justly and peaceably with all creation, CPT has committed itself to work and relationships that honour and reflect the presence of faith and spirituality; strengthen grassroots initiatives; transform structures of domination and oppression; and embody creative non-violence and liberating love.
Along the way, more than 30 alumni, faculty, and staff of CMU and its predecessor colleges have worked for CPT. That includes Dr. Harry Huebner, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Theology, who helped found the organization.
"The work and witness of Christian Peacemaker Teams bring public attention to the beauty of courage and vulnerability that is vital to peacebuilding. The CMU learning community is inspired by the stories of CPT and its executive director, Sarah Thompson."
– CMU President Cheryl Pauls
[ NEWS RELEASE ]
[ VIDEO PRESENTATION ]
In the 1970s, Arthur DeFehr worked with Mennonite Central Committee to lead a massive agricultural redevelopment project in Bangladesh after its civil war. From 1981–82, he worked in Somalia as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
DeFehr also started a university in Lithuania in the dying days of the former Soviet Union, and he helped organize, host, and fund a conflict resolution conference in Myanmar in 2013.
Closer to home, DeFehr has headed refugee programs in Canada and helped spearhead Manitoba's immigration program, which has brought thousands of immigrants to the province since the late 1990s.
DeFehr has been active with Habitat for Humanity since its inception, and he was the founding chairperson of the board of Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
After graduating from Harvard in 1967, DeFehr joined his family's furniture business and remains involved to this day.
"Art DeFehr has brought a formidable depth of imagination and commitment to many of the world's most complex humanitarian concerns."
– CMU President Cheryl Pauls
[ NEWS RELEASE ]
[ VIDEO presentation ]
In 1964, the first L’Arche home opened in France in a previously abandoned small cottage. This community provided a home in the truest sense of the word and was a response to greater society’s call to bring people with intellectual disabilities out of the degrading conditions of institutions. No longer were people with disabilities seen as something shameful to be quarantined, but as full human beings inherently deserving of respect.
Recognizing the need for such a community in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Steve and Ann Newroth started L’Arche Daybreak in 1969. With that, the second L’Arche Community in the world was born. L’Arche Daybreak was built on a 13-acre farm and soon became a dynamic example of how people of different intellectual capacity, religion, and culture can live and learn together.
From these humble roots, L’Arche grew quickly. Today, there are 149 L’Arche communities and 14 projects in 37 countries around the world.
"Mutually transforming relationships that recognize the gifts of people with developmental disabilities are at the heart of the L'Arche movement. The gift of L'Arche is to be treasured."
– CMU President Cheryl Pauls
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