David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Working Group Call for Proposals
2011-08-05
The Asper Centre working groups aim to provide U of T students with an opportunity to conduct legal research and assist in advocacy on Canadian constitutional rights issues (often in partnership with an external organization).
The Asper Centre requires all potential working groups (including existing working groups) to submit a written proposal for consideration by the Asper Centre Working Groups Selection Committee (“the Committee”). The Committee will select the most competitive proposals to form the Asper Centre Working Groups for the following year.
The purpose of the proposal requirement is to enhance the student experience and to ensure that our assistance is of the highest quality and value to our partners. The proposal-based working group model facilitates oversight by the Centre’s Executive Director, allows for further engagement with faculty, and ensures consistency across working groups.
Please contact Cheryl Milne if you need additional information or ideas to form a working group.

(2011)

Volunteer Information Session
2011-09-12 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
Event date: Monday, September 12, 2011, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Bennett Lecture Hall
All U of T law students wishing to participate in this year’s working groups must come to this information session. The possible working groups include the following:
Response to Proposed Crime Bills: Students will be researching the legal issues arising from the proposed crime legislation being put forward by the federal government. Of concern are provisions relating to mandatory minimum sentences as well as detention. Faculty consultant is Kent Roach. Student leader is Arina Joanisse.
Asper Centre Outlook: Assist our 3 student editors create content for the Centre’s twice yearly newsletter. Student editors are Esther Oh, Emily Shepard and Rebekah Lauks.
Equality Rights and Assisted Human Reproduction: Work with our partner organization, LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund) to analyze the equality rights issues arising out of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act and other relevant provincial legislation. The Asper Centre is also organizing a conference November 4-5 with the Health Law Group on this issue. Student leader is Tatiana Lazdins.
Bill C-4 Amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: We are considering a response to the federal government’s proposed amendments to this legislation. A student leader has not yet been chosen.

The Canadian Judicial Appointment Process
2011-09-15 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
The Canadian Judicial Appointment Process:
Where Are We? Where Are We Going?
Peter H. Russell, University Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
Jacob Ziegel, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
12:30 – 2:00
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Classroom A – Flavelle House
78 Queen’s Park
Peter H. Russell has published widely in the fields of constitutional, aboriginal and judicial politics. Recent focus has been on minority government and constitutional conventions relating to parliamentary democracy. Recent publications include, Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism (2005); Appointing Judges in an Age of Judicial Power (2006); Two Cheers for Minority Government (2008); Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis (2009).
Jacob Ziegel, LLB (Hons.)(London), LL.M., Ph.D., LL.D. (London). Professor Ziegel grew up largely in England and received his legal education there. He is a member of the English and Ontario bars. His first teaching post was at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon where he taught from 1962-1966. He then taught at McGill University and the Osgoode Hall Law School before joining the University of Toronto law school in 1975. There he remained until his retirement in 1993. He has remained very active since his retirement, both in teaching and in pursuing his interests as editor in chief of the Canadian Business Law Journal and convenor of the Annual Workshop of Commercial and Consumer Law held annually usually at the UoT law school, and in legal research and writing. Professor Ziegel’s primary interests are in commercial and consumer law and insolvency law, both international and domestic, with strong secondary interests in business organizations law and the judicial administration of justice. Professor Ziegel holds the LSUC’s medal of honour and an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Victoria.
A light lunch will be provided.

Call for Papers Deadline
2011-10-25
Call for Conference Papers
Charter Litigation and the Use of Social Science Evidence:
After thirty years what have we learned? What could we do better?
University of Toronto, St. George Campus – March 23& 24, 2012
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference. This multi-disciplinary event will create opportunities for dialogue between social scientists, academics, students, and litigators on the use of social science evidence in Charter litigation.
The Centre invites papers that stimulate and develop an ongoing dialogue on the approaches to the use of social science evidence. The goal is to foster inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration in addressing social science evidence in Charter litigation. Key themes include:
• Analysis and evaluation of the categories of social science evidence in Charter litigation
• The processes of gathering and presenting social science evidence in Charter litigation
• Historical perspectives
• The tensions between the disciplines of social science and law as arise in the context of litigation
• The persuasive value of social science evidence, its limits, and its admissibility
Other conference themes may include such issues as the ethics of building the social science case; choosing and preparing expert witnesses; social science evidence as a vehicle for legal change; and judicial approaches to hearing and analyzing social science evidence. In particular, the conference is designed to stimulate a dialogue that highlights the approaches of various disciplines to the use of social science evidence in order to develop an inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration.
The papers will be utilized as the central theme on various inter-disciplinary panels across the two-day conference and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special journal issue or as chapters in a book to be published with a reputable academic publisher.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada. For more information about the Centre go to www.aspercentre.ca.
For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca
Deadline for Submissions: October 25, 2011

Reference Re Assisted Human Reproduction Act
2011-11-04 - 2011-11-05
Implications of the Supreme Court’s Decision
November 4-5, 2011
Bennett Lecture Hall
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
78 Queen’s Park Cres, Toronto, ON
The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the Reference re. the Assisted Human Reproduction Act this past spring, striking down some sections and leaving others intact on constitutional grounds. What does this mean for future practice and regulation in this area? What are the regulatory implications for other areas of law that have federal and provincial impacts? What does this mean for reproductive and privacy rights in Canada? How can Canada regulate this area in the global picture?
Keynote presentations to include a dialogue between Preston Manning and Carolyn Bennett, moderated by Steve Paikin, anchor and senior editor, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, and viewing of the CBC documentary, Offspring, with producer Barry Stevens.
Speakers include Peter Hogg, Bernard Dickens, Colleen Flood, Marilyn Pilkington, Carol Rogerson, Trudo Lemmens, Joseph Arvay, Dr. Clifford Librach, Ian Lee, Marie-Claude Premont, Glenn Rivard, Francoise Baylis and Karen Busby, among others.
Topics covered will include:
General overview of the case
Quebec’s arguments for the challenge
Use of the criminal law power
International perspectives
Moral dimensions of AHR; why is AHR practice different from general medical practice
AHRA and reproductive rights; rights of children
Implications for the current federal regulatory state
Current legal landscape and it practical implications for lawyers, medical practitioners and families.
Registration Fee: $200.00 (reduced rates for students, government and NGOs -click on REGISTRATION below for details).
PROGRAM FLYER
CONFERENCE AGENDA
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

Free Brown Bag Lunch Discussion
2011-11-04 12:20 - 13:50
Reference re. Assisted Human Reproduction Act
Implications of the Supreme Court’s Decision
The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the Reference re. the Assisted Human Reproduction Act this past spring, striking down some sections and leaving others intact on constitutional grounds. What does this mean for future practice and regulation in this area? What are the regulatory implications for other areas of law that have federal and provincial impacts? What does this mean for reproductive and privacy rights in Canada? How can Canada regulate this area in the global picture? What are the ethical and policy issues in the context of AHR and how can federal and provincial governments adequately deal with them?
Join us for a free lunchtime discussion with Preston Manning, Carolyn Bennett, Peter Hogg
and Alison Motluk moderated by Steve Paikin, anchor and senior editor
The Agenda with Steve Paikin
Friday, November 4, 2011
12:20-1:50 p.m.
Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
(bring your own lunch)

Catholic Schools and Gay Students Associations
2011-11-09 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
Co-sponsored by Out in Law
Speakers: R. Douglas Elliott, Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Robert Keel
Monday, November 28, 2011
12:30 – 2:00
Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House
78 Queen’s Park
Recently, gay students within Ontario’s Catholic school system have encountered problems that raise legal and constitutional concerns. When students at a high school in the Dufferin-Peel school board district in Mississauga tried to start a gay-straight alliance (GSA) in their high school, their principal prohibited it. At the nearby Halton Catholic District School Board, trustees removed the term “sexual orientation” from a draft text of the board’s anti-discrimination policy. After intense public pressure, they returned “sexual orientation” to the policy, but they still refuse to allow GSAs. What options are available to gay students under these circumstances? Do the students have rights to form these clubs? Do they have other options to make their lives easier as do their peers in non-Catholic public schools? Do the Catholics schools have any responsibilities to these students as gay students or can they take the positions they have taken without repercussions? What is the legal framework for the Catholic school boards’ position? What arguments support this position? What arguments support the gay students’ claims?
Bob Keel is a senior founding Partner of Keel Cottrelle LLP. Bob is qualified in both Ontario and New York State. Bob has appeared before all levels of the Courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as numerous administrative tribunals. At present, his practice is primarily focused on Education Law, including First Nations Governance issues. In particular, Bob has acted on a number of constitutional and human rights cases involving the Charter and/or Human Rights Code. Bob is also presently acting for a number of Catholic District School Boards with respect to the Ministry of Education’s Equity Initiative and, in particular, the issue of Gay and Lesbian Clubs and/or Associations. Bob has spoken at more than 100 conferences and has published more than 100 papers or articles. In addition, Bob is the President of Edu-Law Consulting Services Limited, which provides Conflict Resolution programs for the education sector. Bob is the Executive Editor of the Keel Cottrelle LLP Education Law Newsletter, Human Resources Newsletter, and Public Sector Procurement Law Newsletter. He is also the author of Student Rights and Responsibilities: Attendance and Discipline (1998), the co author of An Educator’s Guide to Managing Sexual Misconduct in Schools (2003), An Educator’s Guide to Parental Harassment (2005) and An Educator’s Guide to the Health and Safety of Students, (2010).
Douglas Elliott is a founding partner in the law firm of Roy Elliott O’Connor LLP. As one of Canada’s leading human rights lawyers, he has helped to win many important cases for Canada’s LGBT communities, including Vriend v Alberta, M. v H., Halpern v Canada, Hislop v Canada and the Reference Re Same Sex Marriage. In the case of Marc Hall v. Durham Catholic School Board, Douglas represented the Coalition in Support of Marc Hall, a diverse group that included, among others, Egale, Canadian Auto Workers and Catholics for Choice. In 2010 Douglas became the first lawyer to be honoured with the Law Society Medal for advancing LGBT rights.
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Director, Equality program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). As Director of CCLA’s Equality Program, Noa works on such issues as protections for migrants and refugees; healthcare; LGBTQ rights; race and gender issues; mental health and prisons; and generally the rights of persons who are marginalized or disadvantaged. Noa has also served as CCLA’s Freedom of Expression Project Director, and dealt extensively with free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. In the effort to promote and protect rights and freedoms in Canada, Noa has been involved with numerous CCLA interventions in the courts – including the Supreme Court of Canada, and has made submissions to various governmental, legislative and public bodies. She has also addressed various groups and has spoken out frequently in the media. In addition, Noa is an integral member of CCLET’s public education project, engaging students at schools and faculties of education in discussions on the challenges of civil liberties.
A light lunch will be served.

Lawyers and the Media – In the Public Interest
2011-11-23 12:30 - 14:00
The media often shows intense interest in the court cases that shape social policy in Canada. Constitutional and human rights related cases such as the recent Insite decision (Canada (Attorney General) v PHS Community Services Society), the Polygamy Reference Case, Bedford v Canada (prostitution challenge), as well as a number of national security cases have been reported on, debated and championed by journalists and commentators in all forms of media across Canada. What is the role that lawyers play in the public debate of the issues in the cases? To what extent do the media influence the outcomes, if at all? How can the media’s interpretation of decisions affect public perception?
A significant concern for lawyers acting in such public interest cases is how to effectively communicate their client’s issues to the media, or whether to do so at all. What do you do when a reporter calls? What are the professional responsibilities of lawyers to their clients, as officers of the court and to the administration of justice when talking to reporters? How is it different if you act for the government? How can lawyers effectively work with the media in the public interest?
Panel:
Julian Falconer, Partner, Falconer Charney LLP
Urszula Kaczmarczyk, Senior General Counsel, Immigration Law Division, Department of Justice
Tracey Tyler, Legal Affairs Reporter, The Toronto Star
Professor David Schneiderman, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Moderator: Paul Schabas, Partner, Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP
This program has been accredited by the Law Society for 1.0 Professionalism Hours and 1.5 New Member CPD Hours.
A light lunch will be served.

Event date: Wednesday, November 23, 2011, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

The Omnibus Crime Bill: Bill C-10
2012-01-23 12:30 - 14:00
On September 20th, 2011, federal justice minister Rob Nicholson tabled Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Forty five sitting days later, on December 5th, the bill passed in the House of Commons. The bill includes several reforms in our criminal justice system, including new mandatory minimum sentences and the elimination of conditional sentences for a range of offences, and a stricter approach to the youth criminal justice system. The reforms received severe criticism from civil liberties groups and from the provincial governments who will have to internalize a portion of the high costs entailed. This Asper Centre panel event aims to focus on the wisdom of the new policies in light of social science research, the practical effect of the reforms for criminal law practitioners, and the impact on young offenders.
Panel Discussion with:
Professor Anthony Doob, FRSC is a professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminology and Social Studies at the University of Toronto. He holds an A.B from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. Professor Doob has published extensively in the areas of penal policy and sentencing. His research interests include juvenile justice, the development of criminal justice policy in Canada, and public perception of crime and the justice system. Currently, he is doing research on two separate topics. First, he is continuing his investigation of the manner in which the youth justice system processes young people. Secondly, in collaboration with Cheryl Webster, at the University of Ottawa, he is conducting research in the area of criminal justice punishment policies in Canada during the past half century. This past fall, Professor Doob appeared in front of the House of Commons committee reviewing Bill C-10.
Clayton Ruby, CM, LLD is one of Canada’s leading lawyers specializing in criminal, constitutional, administrative and civil rights law. Mr. Ruby received his LL.B. from the University of Toronto and his LL.M. from the University of California (Berkeley). Mr. Ruby also authored the leading resource on the law of sentencing in Canada, Sentencing, which, for the past 25 years, has been used by criminal practitioners and the Supreme Court of Canada as the leading authority on the topic. Mr. Ruby has been counsel in several high profile matters, including representing Donald Marshall Jr. at the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall Jr. Prosecution, representing Atif Ahmad Rafay in US v Burns and Rafay, obtaining an acquittal for the wrongfully convicted Guy Paul Morin, and representing Ralph Hussey in R v Askov. In 2006, Mr. Ruby was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Cheryl Milne is a leading children’s rights lawyer and the Executive Director of the Asper Centre. Prior to coming to the Centre, Ms Milne was a legal advocate for children with the legal clinic Justice for Children and Youth. There she led the clinic’s Charter litigation including the challenge to the corporal punishment defence in the Criminal Code [Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (2004)], the striking down of the reverse onus sections of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for adult sentencing [R. v. D.B. (2008)], and an intervention involving the right of a capable adolescent to consent to her own medical treatment ( A.C. v. Manitoba Child and Family Services (2009)]. She has represented the Asper Centre in R. v. Conway and most recently in the Polygamy Reference case. She is the Past Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section.
Moderated by Professor Vincent Chiao, B.A. (University of Virginia), Ph.D. (Northwestern), J.D. (Harvard). Prof. Chiao researches and teaches primarily in the area of criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular interest in the philosophical examination of its doctrine and institutions. Prior to joining the faculty in 2011, he was a law clerk for the Hon. Juan R. Torruella of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Monday, January 23, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLC, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law

Counsel and expert witness reflect on Carter v Canada
2012-09-25 12:30 - 14:00
Prof. Wayne Sumner (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Toronto, expert witness on ethics in the Carter case) and Joseph Arvay, Q.C. (counsel for the plaintiffs in Carter and leading constitutional litigator) will reflect on the landmark British Columbia Supreme Court decision, Carter v Canada 2012 BCSC 886.
Joseph J. Arvay, QC holds law degrees from the University of Western Ontario Law School and Harvard Law School. He is called to the Bars of both British Columbia and the Yukon. Mr. Arvay has a busy civil litigation practice but with an emphasis on constitutional and administrative law matters. He has been involved in many constitutional cases of importance in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. Mr. Arvay has been involved in a number of aboriginal-rights litigation cases and is also counsel on medical malpractice cases, class actions, commercial litigation and defamation.Mr. Arvay has been counsel on a number of landmark constitutional law cases including Egan v Canada, The Little Sisters litigation, Health Services, Canada v PHS Community Services amongst many others. He is counsel on the Carter case.
Wayne Sumner is University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of five books: Abortion and Moral Theory (1981); The Moral Foundation of Rights (1987); Welfare, Ethics, and Happiness (1996); The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression (2004); and Assisted Death: A Study in Ethics and Law (2011). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the 2009 Molson Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities from the Canada Council for the Arts. He was qualified as an expert witness in the case before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Tuesday, September 25, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Of Irregular Votes and Robocalls: Resolving Disputed Elections in Canada and New Zealand
2012-10-24 12:30 - 14:00
Andrew Geddis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Otago
Abstract: This paper begins with the broader question of how a constitutional order based upon a liberal-democratic commitment to letting the people choose their lawmakers ought to respond to allegations of flaws in its election process. After all, any large-scale human undertaking is bound to fall short of perfect implementation, so why do such claims matter so much? And if such claims do matter so much, what are the various issues that need to be resolved in order that they may be properly confronted and settled? From this general discussion, the paper then turns to examine how these issues are addressed in two nations that enjoy similar historical, cultural and constitutional traditions: Canada and New Zealand. The point of this comparison is not to illustrate the breadth of all possible responses to the challenge that a disputed election poses to a liberal democratic constitutional order, but rather to demonstrate that even relatively small differences in legal doctrine can have important real-world consequences. Furthermore, it is argued that such differences as can be discerned between the two nations are attributable to the balance each has struck between the perceived need for ensuring procedural correctness and bringing closure to the election process so as to permit elected representatives to carry out their lawmaking functions. Insofar as both of these goals emerges from the model of liberal democratic constitutionalism itself, each jurisdiction’s choices illustrate that any legal response to the challenge of disputed elections is not necessarily “required” but rather the result of a conscious preference for one over the other.
Andrew Geddis completed his undergraduate work at the University of Otago, studying law and political studies. In 1996 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard Law School, where he completed his LLM degree. In 2000 he returned to Otago to take up a lecturing position. He was appointed an Associate Professor in 2007, a Professor in 2011.
A light lunch will be served.
For more information and a copy of the draft paper contact Nadia Gulezko: n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
Event date: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Judging Social Rights
2013-01-10 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
and the
International Human Rights Program
present
Jeff King, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University College, London
Thursday, January 10, 2013
12:30 – 2:00
Room FLC, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law
78 Queen’s Park
Jeff King is a distinguished visitor this year at the Faculty of Law, teaching an intensive course on social rights. His discussion will focus on some of the central themes of his book, Judging Social Rights (Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law). His book offers an extended argument about why abstract social rights to housing, education, health care, and social security should be part of constitutions. He argues that judges should be able to interpret and enforce social rights, including by striking down legislation, but should act incrementally, taking small steps to expand the coverage of existing rules and principles in a controlled fashion.
Jeff King, BA Hons in Phil (Ottawa) 1996, LLB/BCL (McGill) 2002, MSt (Oxford) 2006, DPhil (Oxford) 2009, is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Laws University College London, where he teaches public law, human rights, and legal and constitutional theory. He is Co-Editor of the journal Current Legal Problems. Previously, he was a Fellow and Tutor in law at Balliol College, and CUF Lecturer for the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford (2008-2011), a Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford (2008-2010), a Research Fellow and Tutor in public law at Keble College, Oxford (2007-08), and an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York City (2003-04). His research and teaching broadly examines doctrinal, theoretical and empirical aspects of comparative public law. He has published articles on the justiciability of resource allocation, judicial restraint, complexity in adjudication, the function of constitutions, the value of legal accountability, proportionality in administrative law, odious debt in international law, and a monograph setting out the case for constitutional social rights and a theory of adjudication in respect of them.
For more workshop information and a copy of the draft paper, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Social and Economic Rights - A South African Perspective
2013-02-14 12:30 - 14:00
Zak Yacoob
Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Event date: Thursday, February 14, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room B, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Judge Yacoob has been a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is married to Anu. The couple have two children. He has been blind for almost all his life. Judge Yacoob became a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in February 1998 and retired from active service on 31 January 2013. Justice Yacoob was appointed Acting Deputy Chief Justice from 1 February 2012 to 31 May 2012. He wrote the Court’s decision in the Grootboom case involving housing rights under the South African constitution.
He attended a special school and attained a law degree at an apartheid university for Indians. In May 2010 he received an LLD honoris causa from the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. The same degree was conferred upon him by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in April 2011.
Judge Yacoob practised as an advocate for 25 years. Much of this was concerned with using the law in the struggle against apartheid and for democracy. He was a member of the underground of the African National Congress and other community organisations. He was a member of the Independent Electoral Commission and of the Independent Panel of Experts that advised the National Assembly on the drafting of the South African Constitution. Judge Yacoob has attended dozens of international conferences and workshops on topics as varied as blindness, children and democracy.
Link to the Grootboom decision.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information and a copy of the Grootboom decision please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

The Indigenous as Alien
2013-11-01 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies &
Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism
present
Leti Volpp
UC Berkeley School of Law
The Indigenous as Alien
Immigration law, as it is taught, studied, and researched in the United States, imagines away the fact of preexisting indigenous populations. To show how this takes place, this Essay examines the way immigration law narrates space, time, and membership. But despite this disappearance from the field, Indians have figured in U.S. immigration law, and thus, the Essay describes the neglected legal history of the treatment of American Indians under U.S. immigration and citizenship law. The paper then returns to explain why Indians have disappeared from U.S. immigration law through an investigation of the relationship between We the People, the “settler contract,” and the “nation of immigrants.”
Leti Volpp is the Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches courses on immigration and citizenship. Her most recent publications include “Imaginings of Space in Immigration Law,” in Law, Culture and the Humanities (2012), the edited symposium issue “Denaturalizing Citizenship: A Symposium on Linda Bosniak’s The Citizen and the Alien and Ayelet Shachar’s The Birthright Lottery,” in Issues in Legal Scholarship (2011), and “Framing Cultural Difference: Immigrant Women and Discourses of Tradition,” in Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies(2011). Forthcoming work includes “Civility and the Alien,” in Civility, Legality and the Limits of Justice (Austin Sarat, ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

Event date: Friday, November 01, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Room 108N, North House, Munk School of Global Affairs, 1 Devonshire Place

"Generous" to a Fault? The Supreme Court of Canada's Approach to Section 6(1) of the Charter
2014-01-15 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE SERIES
presents
John Norris
Constitutional Litigator in Residence
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
“Generous” to a Fault? The Supreme Court of Canada’s Approach to
Section 6(1) of the Charter
John Norris maintains a trial and appellate practice in criminal, constitutional and national security law. He is a Special Advocate for security certificate proceedings, and acts regularly for public interest groups on appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada. John is an adjunct member of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and is an active contributor to continuing legal education. He is the Asper Centre’s Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence for 2013. John is a Director of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. He is an Assistant Editor of the Canadian Rights Reporter, and has authored several scholarly articles. In 2011, John received the Catzman Award for Professionalism and Civility in the practice of law from the Advocates’ Society. John received his LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1991 and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1993.

Event date: Wednesday, January 15, 2014, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Solarium – Falconer Hall, 84 Queen’s Park

Wishful Thinking: The Supreme Court of Canada Looks at Canadian Democracy in the Charter Era
2014-11-18 12:30 - 14:00
Mary Eberts
Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
University of Toronto
Moderator:
Yasmin Dawood
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
NOTE DATE CHANGE: Tuesday, November 18th 2014
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
MARY EBERTS received her legal education at Western and the Harvard Law School, and is a member of the Bar of Ontario. She joined a Bay St. law firm after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and was a partner at that firm until opening a small firm specializing in Charter and public law litigation. From this base in Toronto, she has appeared as counsel to parties and interveners in the Supreme Court of Canada, Courts of Appeal and Superior Courts in Ontario and other provinces, the Federal Court and Court of Appeal, and before administrative tribunals and inquests in Ontario and other provinces. She was active in securing the present language of section 15 of the Charter, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). Since 1991, she has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Mary held the Gordon Henderson Chair in Human Rights at the University of Ottawa in 2004-2005 and the Ariel Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the College of Law, University of Saskachewan in 2011 and 2012, where she taught courses in test case litigation. Recognition of her work includes the Law Society Medal, the Governor-General’s Award in Honour of the Persons’ Case, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and several honourary degrees.

A light lunch will be provided.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

Constitutional Roundtable- Richard Stacey
2015-02-05 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Richard Stacey, Faculty of Law University of Toronto
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Room 101, Victoria College
Constitutional Law in the Absence of Constitution: Power in the Revolutionary Interregnum
In early February 2011, the Egyptian armed forces assumed executive control of Egypt and suspended the 1971 Constitution. A group of academics was mandated to propose amendments to the Constitution which, once approved by referendum on 19 March, became Egypt’s ‘interim’ Constitution. A process for the drafting and adoption of a new constitution was initiated, and the 2012 Constitution was adopted by referendum in December 2012. The armed forces again assumed executive control in July 2013 and suspended the 2012 Constitution, with another new constitution approved at referendum in January 2014. During both periods of military control, it remains unclear what replaced the suspended Constitution as the country’s foundational legal instrument. The Egyptian case is an example of constitutional interregnum, where political authority is exercised in the apparent absence of any formal constitutional foundation for political authority. This paper focuses on these periods of constitutional interregnum, exploring through a number of contemporary and historical cases how the gap left by the suspension of a constitution during a period of constitutional replacement is filled. The paper argues that even without a formal written constitution, a governing body’s authority and the lawfulness of its conduct depends on adherence to supra-constitutional principles derived from the commitment to constitutional democracy itself. Because a democratic constitution claims to speak for the whole people, the law in force during the constitutional interregnum and which governs the drafting of a new constitution must, at least, treat all and each of the people as equals and affirm a democratic right to representation in the drafting process. Any meaningful claim to be exercising authority in the name of the people – a claim to the authority of popular sovereignty – implies a commitment to a set of principles capable of constraining and directing the groups or individuals who exercise authority. These principles provide a constitutional foundation for government and for the legal system during the interregnum, ensuring both a benchmark for lawful government and legal continuity.
Richard Stacey served as Director of Research at the Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law until joining the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD from New York University’s Institute for Law and Society and bachelors degrees in political theory and law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He served as law clerk to Justice Kate O’Regan and Justice Bess Nkabinde at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and has taught courses in political theory, constitutional law, administrative law and human rights at the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town and the City University of New York Law School. In 2009 he was a research consultant during Kenya’s constitutional review process and has remained involved in constitutional transitions around the world, providing technical advice through the Center for Constitutional Transitions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. His work has appeared in a number of journals of law and political theory, the multi-author reference work Constitutional Law of South Africa (of which he acts as co-editor), and in books on constitutional design, land reform, and women’s rights.
A light lunch will be provided.

Constitutional Roundtable - Cristina Rodriguez
2015-10-14 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Cristina Rodriguez, Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at  Yale Law School
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Location: Victoria College, Room VC 115
The Power to Enforce the Law: Presidential Power and American Immigration Policy
In November 2014, President Obama announced his intention to dramatically reshape immigration law through administrative channels. Together with relief policies announced in 2012, his initiatives would shield over half the population of unauthorized immigrants from removal and enable them to work in the United States. These events have drawn renewed attention to the President’s power to shape immigration law. They also have reignited a longstanding controversy about whether constitutional limits exist on a central source of executive authority: the power to enforce the law.
In using the Obama relief policies to explore these dynamics, we make two central claims. First, it is futile to try to constrain the enforcement power by tying it to a search for congressional enforcement priorities. Congress has no discernible priorities when it comes to a very wide swath of enforcement activity—a reality especially true for immigration law today. The immigration code has evolved over time into a highly reticulated statute through the work of numerous Congresses and political coalitions. The modern structure of immigration law also effectively delegates vast screening authority to the President. Interlocking historical, political, and legislative developments have opened a tremendous gap between the law on the books and the law on the ground. Under these conditions, there can be no meaningful search for congressionally preferred screening criteria. Far from reflecting a faithful agent framework, then, immigration enforcement more closely resembles a two-principals model of policymaking—one in which the Executive can and should help construct the domain of regulation through its independent judgments about how and when to enforce the law.
Second, when exploring limits on the enforcement power, we should focus not on who benefits from enforcement discretion but on how the Executive institutionalizes its discretion. The Obama relief initiatives are innovative: they bind the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to a more rule-like decision-making process, constrain the judgments of line-level officials by subjecting them to centralized supervision, and render the exercise of enforcement discretion far more transparent to the public than is customary. These efforts to better organize the enforcement bureaucracy ultimately advance core rule of law values without undermining deterrence or legal compliance, as some critics have worried. Moreover, while our focus on discretion’s institutionalization requires contextualized judgments that may rarely translate into clear doctrinal rules to govern the enforcement power, we believe it is generally unnecessary and unwise to use constitutional law to limit the President’s authority over how to organize the enforcement bureaucracy.
Cristina M. Rodríguez was appointed Professor of Law at Yale Law School in January 2013. From 2011-2013, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, and from 2004-2012 she was on the faculty at the NYU School of Law. Professor Rodriguez also has been a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Henry L. Stimson Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Before entering academia, she clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Professor Rodriguez’s fields of research and teaching include immigration law; constitutional law and theory; administrative law and process; language rights and language policy; and citizenship theory. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, she earned a B.A. in History from Yale College in 1995, a Master of Letters in Modern History in 1998 from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000.

Constitutional Roundtable - Zaid Al-Ali
2015-10-30 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Zaid Al-Ali, Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Solarium, Falconer Hall

The Absence of Social Solidarity Amongst Arab Elites: Causes and Consequences of the Failure of post-2011 Constitutional Reform
Post-colonial constitutions in the Arab region were all based on the promise that they would correct the inequities of colonial rule with a new form of social justice. Virtually all included references to political accountability, independence of the judiciary, as well as long lists of political, social and economic rights for all. The 2011 uprisings demonstrated the extent to which these constitutions failed to achieve that promise, and the reform efforts that followed were an important opportunity to correct the institutional flaws that had become so apparent. This paper will first demonstrate that the post-uprising reform efforts make close to no progress in comparison to the texts that they were designed to replace, particularly in so far as social justice is concerned. Secondly, it will demonstrate that those few elements of progress that were made were the result of generally undemocratic processes (in the traditional sense). Thirdly, the paper will explore the processes through which Arab countries reformed their constitutions, with a view to explaining why reliance on direct elections and other traditional democratic mechanisms did not generally lead to improved social justice for those individuals and communities who commenced the uprisings in the first place.
Zaid Al-Ali is Senior Adviser on Constitution Building for International IDEA and is also a fellow and visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Law and Public Affairs Program. He has been practicing law since 1999, specializing in international commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law. He has law degrees from Harvard Law School, the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and King’s College London. From 2005 to 2010, he was a legal adviser to the United Nations focusing on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2011, he has been working on constitutional reform throughout the Arab region, in particular in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. He has published widely on Iraq and on constitutional law. His book on the post-2003 transition in Iraq (The Struggle for Iraq’s Future) was published by Yale University Press in February 2014

Asper Centre and Aboriginal Law Program Presentation: Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe
2016-11-14 12:30 - 14:00
Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada
In Aamjiwnaang First Nation (near Sarnia, Ontario) the female to male birthrate is 2:1. Community members experience abnormal incidences of miscarriage, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses. This workshop will explore if law has thus far failed this community and what Canadian and Indigenous governments are doing now to protect the land.
Monday, November 14, 2016
12:30pm – 2:00pm
Jackman Law Building J125
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
78 Queens Park, Toronto
Light lunch will be provided
Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Victoria and SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow, will lead students through a conversation covering:

The chemical manufacturing around Aamjiwnaang First Nation and the damage it has done to the land and community members
Canada’s dark legacy of inflicting harm on Indigenous bodies and how the system fails to adequately address health and ecological suffering
The challenges jurisdictional issues pose for the creation of sound environmental justice policy
The clash between Indigenous and scientific knowledge
The 2011 Chemical Valley Charter challenge brought by two members of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and Ecojustice which was, in April 2016, withdrawn

Please RSVP so we have enough food!
To RSVP or for further information, please contact Amanda Carling at amanda.carling@utoronto.ca

Asper Centre Immigration & Refugee Law student working group presents Senator Ratna Omidvar
2018-03-07 12:30 - 14:00 | J140 Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's Park Cres, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C5, Canada
The Asper Centre’s Immigration & Refugee Law Student Working Group is honoured to host Senator Ratna Omidvar for a lunchtime seminar on Wednesday March 7, 2018 at 12h30. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend. Senator Omidvar will share her personal story of coming to Canada from India, and she will discuss issues related to inclusion and diversity in Canada, immigration and refugee law and policy, the Charter and progressive law reform. She will then take questions from the audience. This will be a great opportunity to get some insight from her inspiring career.
Light lunch will be provided
Email tal.schreier@utoronto.ca for further information.
About Senator Omidvar:

The Honourable Ratna Omidvar, C.M., O.Ont.
Senator for Ontario, The Senate of Canada
Ratna Omidvar is an internationally recognized voice on migration, diversity and inclusion. In April 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Ms. Omidvar to the Senate of Canada as an independent Senator representing Ontario. As a member of the Senate’s Independent Senators Group she holds a leadership position as the Scroll Manager.
Senator Omidvar is the founding Executive Director and currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Global Diversity Exchange (GDX), Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University. GDX is a think-and-do tank on diversity, migration and inclusion that connects local experience and ideas with global networks. Previously, Senator Omidvar was the President of Maytree, where she played a lead role in local, national and international efforts to promote the integration of immigrants.
Senator Omidvar is the current Co-Chair of the Global Future Council on Migration hosted by the World Economic Forum and serves as a Councillor on the World Refugee Council. She is also a director at the Environics Institute, and Samara Canada. Senator Omidvar is the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council’s Chair Emerita and was formerly the Chair of Lifeline Syria.
Senator Omidvar is co-author of Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada (2015), an Open Book Toronto best book of 2015 and one of the Toronto Star‘s top five good reads from Word on the Street. She is also a contributor to The Harper Factor (2016) and co-editor of Five Good Ideas: Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success (2011). Senator Omidvar received an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Laws, York University in 2012.
Senator Omidvar was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2005 and became a Member of the Order of Canada in 2011, with both honours recognizing her advocacy work on behalf of immigrants and devotion to reducing inequality in Canada. In 2014, she received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of German-Canadian relations.

Asper Centre's 10th Anniversary Celebration
2018-10-17 17:00 - 19:00 | Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 78 Queens Park
View the event photo gallery
Read our “Celebrating 10 Years” Magazine
Read the Asper Centre’s 2017 – 2018 annual report
Watch the video of the event on YouTube
It’s been a full decade since the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights opened its doors!
To celebrate 10 years of dedicated advocacy, education and research, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Thomas Cromwell will moderate a conversation between Mary Eberts and Joseph Arvay, two of our former Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence
on October 17, 2018 at 5:00pm
Reception to follow
The Honourable Thomas Albert Cromwell, C.C. received law degrees from Queen’s and Oxford, practised law in Kingston and Toronto and taught law at Dalhousie University. During his time at Dalhousie, he was active as a labour arbitrator and served as Vice-chair of the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board. After serving as Executive Legal Officer to the Chief Justice Canada from 1992 – 1995, he was appointed a judge of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1997, serving there until his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008. Mr. Cromwell was the first recipient of the Canadian Bar Association’s Louis St. Laurent Award of Excellence and is an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and of the American College of Trial Lawyers. A holder of four honorary doctorates in law, he has also had an award established in his name at the Queen’s Faculty of Law, The Honourable Thomas Cromwell Award for Public Service. He is the chair of the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, a director of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice and of Access Pro Bono British Columbia. He retired from the Supreme Court of Canada on September 1st, 2016. A member of the Bars of Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia, he now serves as senior counsel with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Ottawa and Vancouver. He is a recipient of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s Justice Medal and of the Medal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. In 2017, was named a Companion of the Order of Canada for his “illustrious service as a Supreme Court justice, and for his leadership in improving access to justice for all Canadians.” In 2018, he was named by the Canadian Lawyer Magazine as of one Canada’s most influential lawyers.

Mary Eberts received her legal education at Western and the Harvard Law School, and is a member of the Bar of Ontario. She joined a Bay St. law firm after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and was a partner at that firm until opening a small firm specializing in Charter and public law litigation. From this base in Toronto, she has appeared as counsel to parties and interveners in the Supreme Court of Canada, Courts of Appeal and Superior Courts in Ontario and other provinces, the Federal Court and Court of Appeal, and before administrative tribunals and inquests in Ontario and other provinces. She was active in securing the present language of section 15 of the Charter, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). Since 1991, she has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Mary held the Gordon Henderson Chair in Human Rights at the University of Ottawa in 2004-2005 and the Ariel Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the College of Law, University of Saskachewan in 2011 and 2012, where she taught courses in test case litigation. Mary was the Constitutional Litigator in Residence in 2014-15 and a McMurty Fellow at Osgoode Hall Law School in 2015-16. Recognition of her work includes the Law Society Medal, the Governor-General’s Award in Honour of the Persons’ Case, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and several honourary degrees. In 2017, Mary was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She is currently a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto.
Joseph Arvay, who co-founded the firm of Arvay Finlay Barristers in 1990 with offices in Vancouver and Victoria, is recognized as one of this country’s most highly respected lawyers. His practice emphasizes constitutional and administrative law matters, as well as Indigenous rights litigation.. He has been counsel in scores of important Supreme Court of Canada cases. His exceptional commitment to human rights in this country has been recognized with numerous awards and tributes. He was awarded honourary doctorates of law from both York University and the University of Victoria. In 2017 he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada as well as a Member of the Order of British Columbia.

Asper Centre Panel on Indigenous Child Welfare & Self-Governance
2024-10-31 12:30 - 14:00 | J130 Jackman law building, 78 Queen's Park, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, Jackman Law Building Atrium, Toronto, Canada
Asper Centre Constitutional Roundtable Presents a Panel on
Indigenous Child Welfare & Self-Governance
with Prof John Borrows (the Loveland Chair of Indigenous Law, UofT Law), Prof Maggie Blackhawk (NYU Law) & Sara Mainville (JFK Law LLP)
Moderated by Asper Centre ED, Cheryl Milne
Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 12:30pm – 2:00pm (in person or virtual)
Room J130, Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
All are welcome * Light lunch will be provided * Registration Required
REGISTER HERE
Background
Over the past few years, both Canadian and American courts have decided cases that impact Indigenous Nations’ ability to care for Indigenous children. Both countries have histories and present realities of removing Indigenous children from Indigenous homes, thereby jeopardizing the safety of Indigenous children and undermining Indigenous Nations’ sovereignty and governance. With this context in mind, the recent Supreme Court of the United States Haaland v Brackeen decision, and the Supreme Court of Canada Attorney General of Québec, et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, et al decisions are of paramount importance to Indigenous sovereignty and safety. Both cases address federal legislation introduced to address the historic and ongoing harms caused by the apprehension of Indigenous children by settler governments. In both countries, these decisions also demonstrate how child welfare is closely connected to Indigenous assertions of and rights to self-government.
The Asper Centre Indigenous Rights Working Group is pleased to present a panel event to unpack the significant legal issues and potential future implications of these cases, with a focus on the Quebec Reference case and its meaning for the interpretation of Section 35 of the Constitution and Indigenous self-governance.
Panelists
Maggie Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) is professor of law at NYU and a prize-winning scholar and teacher of federal Indian law, constitutional law, and legislation. Blackhawk was awarded the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize and her research has been published or is forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Supreme Court Review, American Historical Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, and Journal of Politics. Much of her scholarship explores the relationship between law and power, with a particular emphasis on the ways that subordinated peoples leverage law to shift power to their communities—especially outside of rights and courts-based frameworks. Her recent projects have focused on the laws and legal histories of American colonialism and the central role of the American colonial project, including the resistance and advocacy of Native and other colonized peoples, in shaping the constitutional law and history of the United States.
Sara Mainville is a partner at JFK Law LLP and has been a member of the Ontario bar since 2005 and she is a member of the BC bar (2022) with specific matter approvals to practice in Nunavut and Quebec. Sara has a Management/Public Administration degree (Lethbridge) and a Bachelor of Laws from Queen’s University. She has a LLM from the University of Toronto and an Advanced Negotiations certificate from Harvard University, and a Certificate in Entertainment Law (Osgoode PD). In 2014, Sara was elected as Chief of Couchiching First Nation after the sudden death of her friend and mentor, Chief Chuck McPherson. Sara uses this experience as a former Chief to help leadership work past difficult issues, within Indigenous forms of dispute resolution, and walk the community through processes to encourage discourse and grassroots solutions to long-held problems. Sara has completed Advanced Negotiations training at Harvard University and dispute resolution, legislative drafting, and mediation training at professional institutes in order to advance her clients’ long held goals for self-determination and truer treaty partnerships in Canada. Sara is generally seen as a subject-matter expert about Crown-Indigenous relations, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaty 3, and Anishinaabe Inakonigewin. However, Sara sees herself as a life-long learner willing to meet in community, read voraciously, and listen intently to better understand Indigenous knowledge systems across Canada.
John Borrows B.A., M.A., J.D., LL.M. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Osgoode Hall Law School), LL.D. (Hons., Dalhousie, York, SFU, Queen’s & Law Society of Ontario), D.H.L, (Toronto), F.R.S.C., O.C., is the Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Toronto Law School. His publications include, Recovering Canada; The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (Donald Smiley Award best book in Canadian Political Science, 2002), Canada’s Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and Society Best Book Award 2011), Drawing Out Law: A Spirit’s Guide (2010), Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism ((Donald Smiley Award best book in Canadian Political Science, 2016), The Right Relationship (with Michael Coyle, ed.), Resurgence and Reconciliation (with Michael Asch, Jim Tully, eds.), Law’s Indigenous Ethics (2020 Best subsequent Book Award from Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 2020 W. Wes Pue Best book award from the Canadian Law and Society Association). He is the 2017 Killam Prize winner in Social Sciences and the 2019 Molson Prize Winner from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2020 Governor General’s Innovation Award, and the 2021 Canadian Bar Association President’s Award winner. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2020. John is a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
REGISTER HERE
