B.PAPM graduate Robyn Gibbard (’12) has been selected for the prestigious Parliamentary Internship Programme for 2013-14. The 10-month programme provides an opportunity for 10 young Canadian university graduates to work and study on Parliament Hill. Interns receive a $22,000 scholarship and spend five months working in the office of a Government MP, and five months in the office of a member of the Opposition. The programme includes seminars and brown bag luncheons with parliamentarians as well as comparative study tours. In recent years interns have visited legislatures in Nunavut, Edinburgh, London, Belfast and Brussels. Interns complete a research project on an aspect of Canadian politics and governance.
A Senate medalist for academic excellence, Robyn is especially interested in issues of social justice. His academic work in Kroeger College included papers on the history and practicalities of a basic income system in Canada, focusing on the experiment with such a system in Manitoba in the 1970s; on the differing legal treatment of aboriginal rights and title in Canada and Australia; and on federal and provincial housing subsidies, this last conducted for the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation. His Honours Research Essay was an analysis of the changes to Canada’s youth justice system as a result of the Safe Streets and Communities Act, the omnibus crime bill.
Information on the Parliamentary Intership Programme can be found at: http://www.pip-psp.org/index-e.html