The World Affairs Conference, also known as WAC, is Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

's oldest annual student-run current affairs conference. It was first held in March 1983 and initiated by UCC student David James Wilson, working in collaboration with faculty advisor, Paul W. Bennett. Conference Chairs for WAC 2012 are Omar Abboud, Kaleem Hawa, Sarah Fadel and Sara Franklin-White. Conference Vice-Chairs are Sebastian Marotta and Shashwat Koirala. The first Keynote Speaker was Dr. William Epstein, United Nations Expert on the Nuclear Arms Race. The program format combined speakers, panels, theme plenaries and student-moderated discussions, first initiated by Stephanie Reford's Introducing the World Program. In 1984 and 1985, UCC student Ira Nishisato became Chair and WAC expanded. In February 1985, WAC attraced some 1,600 students from over 70 different high schools across North America. A student organizing committee carried the conference forward over its first 10 years, guided at first by Paul Bennett, then by Thomas Matthews. Both Faculty Advisors went on to become Headmasters in other Canadian independent schools. Among the most popular keynote speakers in the first decade were former UN Ambassador Stephen Lewis, Editor Robin Morgan, Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....

, and Lord David Owen

David Owen

David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen CH PC FRCP is a British politician.Owen served as British Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, the youngest person in over forty years to hold the post; he co-authored the failed Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg peace plans offered during the Bosnian War...

. Senior students from UCC and Branksome Hall began working together in the late 1980s and have sustained the annual conference for over 25 years.

Today, WAC continues to be held annually for two days at Upper Canada College

Upper Canada College

Upper Canada College , located in midtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is an independent elementary and secondary school for boys between Senior Kindergarten and Grade Twelve, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The secondary school segment is divided into ten houses; eight are...

 located in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, attended by over 750 international students from 20 schools; providing a forum for students to hear opinions of leaders in the global community and discuss current and pressing world issues amongst themselves. More recent speakers have included David Frum

David Frum

David J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...

, Michael Ignatieff

Michael Ignatieff

Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011...

, Susan Faludi

Susan Faludi

Susan C. Faludi is an American feminist, journalist and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee thought showed the "human costs of high finance".-Biographical...

, Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer, OC is a London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military historian.Dyer was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve at the age of sixteen...

, Bob Rae

Bob Rae

Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....

, Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments in the...

, Samantha Nutt

Samantha Nutt

Samantha Joan Nutt, , C.M., O.Ont., LL.D., FRCPC, CCFP, is a co-founder and Executive Director of War Child Canada. She is a physician with more than thirteen years of experience working in war zones. Since the beginning of her career, Nutt has focused on providing assistance to war-affected women...

, Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo

Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist and New York Times best-selling author of both Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, published in 2009, and How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly - And the Stark Choices that Lie Ahead, published in...

 and Thomas Homer-Dixon

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Thomas Homer-Dixon holds the Centre for International Governance Innovation Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario, and is a Professor in the Centre for Environment and Business in the Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo...

, all of whom have spoken on a variety of topics including Human Rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

, Gender Issues, Justice

Justice

Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

, Globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

,and Health Ethics. Focused on a central theme, the annual two-day conference has discussed topics ranging from demographics, human rights, gender issues, justice and health ethics.