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This lecture explores the history of sanctuary
across two centuries with a particular focus on the city of Montreal and the
Eastern Townships. Based on Dr. Laura Madokoro’s forthcoming publication on
this topic, this lecture explores a number of historic sanctuary cases that
connected the city of Montreal with events in the Eastern Townships in the late
nineteenth century to explore the shifting dynamics around the provision of
refuge.

Given contemporary debates about asylum and
refuge, and the recent 13-month sanctuary case involving Rodriguez-Flores
family provided by Plymouth-Trinity United Church in Sherbrooke, this lecture
teases out the shifts from covert to public forms of sanctuary to elaborate
what is at stake in any discussion of refuge and hospitality in the present.