Charles Taylor accepts million-dollar prize

Nicolas Berggruen, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Charles Taylor, Fareed Zakaria and Craig Calhoun at the Berggruen gala in New York on Thursday Dec. 1, 2016.

Two months after being told he was the winner of a new award, Quebec philosopher Charles Taylor has accepted the inaugural Berggruen Prize.

The US$1 million award comes from the Berggruen Institute, a six-year-old think tank founder by investor and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen.

Taylor, 84, picked up the award Thursday at a gala in New York, hosted by Berggruen himself.

The institute says its mission is to "to develop foundational ideas" and use them to help shape political and social institutions in the 21st century.

Taylor is a professor emeritus at McGill University, a member of the Order of Canada, and is well-known for his role in the Bouchard-Taylor Commission that analyzed how best to integrate immigrants into Quebec and Canadian society.