Marvin Rotrand receives King Charles III medal for outstanding services rendered

Marvin Rotrand receives King Charles III medal for outstanding services rendered
Montreal, January 25, 2025 – On January 16 Marvin Rotrand, long time former City Councilor for Snowdon and current Director General of United Against Hate Canada, was awarded the King Charles Medal via zoom as he is out of the country. The nomination for the award was made by current Snowdon City Councillor Sonny Moroz and submitted by Mount Royal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather and was vetted and approved by Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada. A ceremony was held on ZOOM presided by Housefather and attended by leaders of the many community groups with which Rotrand worked during his tenure in office as a Montreal Councillor. The King Charles III medal is to be awarded in the first anniversary year of the coronation of the new monarch, thus between May 6, 2024 and May 5, 2025. During the anniversary year, 30,000 medals will be awarded, of which 4000 will recognize members of the Canadian Armed Forces and 1000 will honour public service employees. The eligibility criteria for the nonmilitary or civil service awardees requires those receiving the medal to “have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a particular province, territory, region or community of Canada, or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada.” Marvin Rotrand has served the public for over forty years. He now occupies the position of Director General of United Against Hate Canada, a human rights anti-hate organization, a post he has held since February 2024. Previous to that he occupied the role of National Director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights from August 2021 to February 2024
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ted to governments at all three levels for public policies that combat hate and intolerance in Canada, liaised with police departments to ensure follow up to complaints as to incidents targeting minorities and provided guidance to school boards and Ministries of Education to improve Holocaust education. He has been a leading voice in fostering closer relations between Filipinos and Jews by working to educate the Canadian public to the Rescue In the Philippines, when President Manuel Quezon opened the doors of the country to shelter Jews fleeing the Holocaust, becoming one of only a handful of world leaders to try to rescue Jews during the dark time of the Holocaust. More recently he cemented a partnership between United Against Hate Canada and the Filipino Heritage Society to highlight June as Filipino Heritage Month in Canada. Several dozen communities have in the past months adopted Council resolutions to formalize the heritage month in their territory including locally Cote Saint Luc and Pointe Claire. Many years ago, he was the instigator of the Montreal Manila Friendship Agreement ratified in October 2005 and was the mover of the motion declaring June as Filipino Heritage Month in Montreal. After its adoption by Montreal Council, the Canadian Parliament emulated the gesture by adopting its own motion making the heritage month national. He also worked with the late Alberto Abiera and the Knights of Rizal to have City Council officially name the area surrounding the monument of Dr. Jose Rizal in Mackenzie King Park as Place Jose Rizal. He has been instrumental in working with the Filipino Israel Day Committee forming a joint Filipino – Jewish delegation to march in the annual Israel Day parade. Marvin Rotrand is a native Montrealer and holds degrees from Sir George Williams and McGill Universities. Before assuming his work in human rights, he was a noted member of Montreal City Council. In fact, he holds the record for longevity in office, having first been elected in 1982 and serving until 2021 when he retired after 39 yeas. Much of Rotrand’s work was in public transportation. He was a Board member of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) where he served from November 2001 until 2018, mostly in the capacity of Vice President. In 2017 he won the Canadian Urban Transit Association’s (CUTA) prize for distinguished service for public transport in Canada. Councillor Rotrand was the national chair of CUTA’s Transit Board Members committee. He held many important positions at the STM. He chaired the Asset Management Committee that oversaw the STM’s acquisition of 468 new metro cars, the investments in the state of good repair of Montreal’s four-line metro network as well as the acquisition of hybrid buses. He also chaired the Customer Service Committee between 2003 and 2015 developing the STM’s “Voice of the Customer” approach which included introducing public meetings to allow the clientele to comment on STM services. The Customer Service committee worked to renew the STM’s bus shelters, launched the programs to offer real time passenger information and to assure mobile phone coverage in the metro. During his time in office, Councillor Rotrand sat on the City’s Public Security Commission, Finance Commission, President’s Commission as well as being the Majority Leader at City Council between 2009 and 2013. Rotrand stated that he is greatly honoured to receive King Charles III medal and that his family is proud to witness him being accorded such a prestigious award. His son was among the speakers who are representatives of several Filipino organizations and other ethnic communities. In their accolades, all speakers cited the fact that Marvin Rotrand is indeed an outstanding and inspirational leader. Chelsea Craig, as the host of the zoom meeting, called the names of the speakers but they are too numerous to mention in this article. At the end of the zoom meeting that lasted two hours, Mr. Housefather showed the medal in his hand which will be given to Mr. Rotrand on his return to Canada. The King Charles III Coronation medal is silver and nickel and 32 mm in diameter, bearing on the obverse, a crowned and robed effigy of Charles III, the King of Canada, facing right, circumscribed with the inscriptions “CHARLES III DEI GRATIA REX” and “CANADA”. On the reverse, there appears on the background a ring of frosted triangular shapes evoking the image of a string of pennants displayed for a celebration. These 13 shapes allude to Canada’s provinces and territories. Over this background appears the Canadian Royal Cypher in the center, the date of the Coronation, 6.V.2023, on the left and the words “VIVAT REX” meaning Long Live The King, on the right. The medal was designed by Cathy Bursey-Sabourin, Fraser Herald at the Canadian Heraldic Authority at the Chancellery of Honours, Rideau Hall.#
Source: Filipino Star