Book Launch - False Security by Prof Kent Roach and Craig Forcese
2015-10-08 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Toronto)
All are welcome to attend the book launch for False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism , the latest book by Professor Kent Roach from the University of Toronto – Faculty of Law and co-author Professor Craig Forcese, from the University of Ottawa – Faculty of Law. The book launch will be followed by a panel discussion with other esteemed panelists.
Panelists include:
Ron Atkey P.C., Q.C., first Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee
Joe Fogarty, former UK government security liaison to Canada
Sukanya Pillay, General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Craig Forcese, Author and Associate Professor of Law, University of Ottawa
Kent Roach, Author and Professor of Law, University of Toronto
with Jonathan Kay from The Walrus as moderator.
Book Launch – False Security – Kent Roach and Craig Forcese
Location: Victoria College – 2nd Floor, Room 213 – 91 Charles St. West
(2015)

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

Deadline: Call for Papers - December 14, 2015
2015-12-14
The State of Canada’s Constitutional Democracy
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, St. George Campus – February 27, 2016
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference examining the state of Canada’s constitutional democracy. Dramatic changes have taken place in recent years at the national level in respect to the day to day functioning of our constitutional democracy. These changes impinge on the separation of powers, the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution.
Examples include:

the operation of the House of Commons and the Senate and the functioning of committees in both Houses in respect to the quality of deliberation, reflection on questions of constitutionality generally, and in respect to specific policy areas such as national security and crime and punishment, as it impacts on mental health, violence against women,
the expansion and increased powers of the PMO
the appointment process to the Senate and the Supreme Court
the stance taken by the government to some aspects of the Constitution and the judiciary,
the government’s approach to information creation, retention and dissemination as well as sources of expertise and scientific knowledge, as it impacts on public policy areas such as health, climate change, resource development, Aboriginal education, women’s equality
the Court’s role to strike down legislation and critique government action and the government’s response to this such as the aftermath of the PHS case, Bedford and Carter, and the SCC’s declaration in Khadr.
the professional ethics applicable to the work of government lawyers in a more politicized environment
Our interest is examining these changes is to assess their impact on the norms and processes stipulated by our written Constitution as well as by fundamental constitutional principles and conventions.

This symposium is part of a broader analysis by the Asper Centre of the state of the rule of law and Canada’s constitutional democracy comprising background papers and additional workshops that will result in a final report.The papers will be utilized as the central themes on various panels across the one day symposium and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of the National Journal of Constitutional Law. Authors of papers chosen for presentation will be notified by January 1, 2016 (extended). Papers for distribution at the conference must be submitted by February 6, 2016.
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 with a 1-2 paragraph biography to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca

Deadline for Submissions: December 14, 2015 (EXTENDED)

Constitutional Roundtable - Raj Anand
2016-02-03 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Raj Anand
Constitutional Litigator in Residence with the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Victoria College, Room 206
Topic: Subsection 15(2) of the Charter and its Disconnection with Substantive Equality
Raj Anand is a partner and an arbitrator and mediator with WeirFoulds LLP. His practice includes the areas of administrative, human rights, constitutional and employment law, civil litigation, professional negligence and regulation. In his third term as an elected Bencher of the Law Society, he is currently the Vice-Chair of the Law Society Tribunal’s Hearing Division. He was a member of task forces or working groups on admission requirements, articling, good character, Law Society governance and Tribunal reform. He was Vice Chair of the Equity and Aboriginal Issues Committee for five years, and is currently Co-Chair of the Working Group on Challenges faced by Racialized Lawyers and Paralegals in Ontario and Chair of the Three Year Review of the Tribunal reforms. Raj graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law with the Dean’s Key in 1978. He has served as President of the U of T Law Alumni Council, the Minority Advocacy and Rights Council, the International Commission of Jurists Canada, and Pro Bono Law Ontario; Co-Chair of the U of T Tribunal; and board member of the Advocates’ Society, Legal Aid Ontario, the Law Commission of Ontario, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Justice for Children and Youth, and the Income Security Advocacy Centre. Raj was Chief Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission in 1988-89, Board of Inquiry from 1989-94, and founding Chair of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre in 2008-10. Raj has taught “The New Administrative Law” at the masters level, and “Legal Ethics: Legal Values” and “Diversity and the Legal Profession” at the JD level. He was the first recipient of the Advocates’ Society Award of Justice in 1997, and has since received the Law Society Medal, the Professional Man of the Year award of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, and the South Asian Bar Association’s Distinguished Career Award. In 2013, he was an inaugural Roy McMurtry Visiting Clinical Fellow at Osgoode Hall Law School.

The State of Canada's Constitutional Democracy
2016-02-26 08:00 - 2016-02-27 17:00
SYMPOSIUM
February 26 – 27, 2016
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto (Room: Solarium, FA2)
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, University of Toronto and the Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta, co-organized this symposium examining the state of Canada’s constitutional democracy. Dramatic changes have taken place in recent years at the national level in respect to the day to day functioning of our constitutional democracy. These changes impinge on the separation of powers, the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution.
Examples of topics covered included:
• the operation of the House of Commons and the Senate and the functioning of committees in both Houses in respect to the quality of deliberation, reflection on questions of constitutionality generally, and in respect to specific policy areas,
• the increased powers of the PMO
• the appointment process to the Senate and the Supreme Court
• the stance taken by the government to some aspects of the Constitution and the judiciary,
• the government’s approach to information creation, retention and dissemination as well as sources of expertise and scientific knowledge, as it impacts on public policy areas such as health, climate change, resource development, Aboriginal education, women’s equality
• the Court’s role to strike down legislation and critique government action and the government’s response to this such as the aftermath of the PHS case, Bedford and Carter, and the SCC’s declaration in Khadr.
• the professional ethics applicable to the work of government lawyers in a more politicized environment
Our interest in examining these changes was to assess their impact on the norms and processes stipulated by our written Constitution as well as by fundamental constitutional principles and conventions.
This symposium was part of a broader analysis by the Asper Centre of the state of the rule of law and Canada’s constitutional democracy comprising background papers and additional workshops that resulted in a now available final report.
Symposium Agenda
READ MORE ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM HERE

Constitutional Roundtable - Susan Williams
2016-02-29 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Susan Williams
Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law and Director, Center for Constitutional Democracy Maurer School of Law Indiana University
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Solarium, Falconer Hall
Topic
Legal Pluralism, Gender Equality and Parity of Participation: Constitutional Issues Concerning Customary Law in Liberia
Susan Williams is the author of Truth, Autonomy, and Speech: Feminist Theory and the First Amendment (NYU Press 2004). Her current book project, Constituting Equality: Comparative Constitutional Law and Gender Equality, is a collection of essays growing out of a spring 2007 conference she organized. She has also written numerous articles on constitutional law and feminist legal theory. She is actively involved in constitutional advising for the Burmese democracy movement. She is a constitutional advisor to the Women’s League of Burma, the Federal Constitution Drafting Coordinating Committee, and the state constitution drafting committees of all of the states of Burma. In this capacity, she teaches workshops, produces educational materials, and works on drafting and revising constitutional language. At Indiana Law, Williams teaches Property, First Amendment Law, Feminist Jurisprudence, and a seminar on Comparative Constitutional Law on Gender Equality. She believes that the best lawyers do not conduct legal analysis in a vacuum. “We must train our students to think and argue clearly and critically,” she says. “But at the same time, we must encourage them to bring their own values and experiences to bear on the legal issues they are studying. Law is a mirror in which we can read our character as a society, both as it presently exists and as we would ideally like it to be.”(Bio drawn from Susan Williams’ profile at Maurer School of Law)

Constitutional Roundtable - Richard Albert
2016-03-15 12:30 - 14:00
Richard Albert
Associate Professor of Law and Dean’s Research Scholar at Boston College
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Solarium, Falconer Hall
The Conventions of Constitutional Amendment in Canada
Commentators have suggested that the unsuccessful national referendum to ratify the 1992 Charlottetown Accord has created an expectation of popular participation requiring national referendal consultation in major reforms to the Constitution of Canada. In this Article, I inquire whether federal political actors are bound by a constitutional convention of national referendal consultation for formal amendments to the basic structure of the Constitution of Canada. Drawing from the Supreme Court of Canada’s Patriation Reference, I suggest that we cannot know whether federal political actors are bound by such a convention until they are confronted with the question whether or not to hold a national referendum in connection with a change to the Constitution’s basic structure. I conclude by suggesting, perhaps counterintuitively, that layering a conventional requirement of national referendal consultation onto the existing requirements for formal amendments to the Constitution’s basic structure could well undermine democracy, despite our common association of referenda with democratic legitimacy.
Richard Albert is an Associate Professor at Boston College Law School, where he specializes in constitutional law and comparative constitutional law. He holds degrees from Yale University, Oxford University, and Harvard University.

Clinic Information Session
2016-03-30 12:30 - 14:00
This information session for University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students, provides information on how to enroll in the for credit clinical programs at the Faculty including the Asper Centre Constitutional Rights Advocacy Clinic. Representatives from Downtown Legal Services, the International Human Rights Program and the various externship programs will be on hand to answer your questions.
This is a bring-your-own-lunch event. Room location is yet to be confirmed.

(2016)

Work for the Asper Centre
2016-04-18 08:00 - 17:00
PROGRAM COORDINATOR
POSITION DESCRIPTION:
The Program Coordinator will support the educational mission of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights by organizing educational events such as conferences, roundtables and symposia; coordinating publications which promote the Centre and provide educational content to students, academics, the practising bar and the general public; and supporting the work of volunteer students in working groups focused on particular issues in constitutional law in Canada.
QUALIFICATIONS:
(Minimum)
Education:
Bachelor’s Degree or an acceptable equivalent combination of education and experience. A Law degree (LLB or JD) or graduate degree in constitutional or human rights law (MA) is highly desirable.
Experience:
Minimum 2 years’ experience related to program design, implementation and coordination, preferably in the area of human rights
Demonstrated experience coordinating a volunteer-based program
Demonstrated experience working closely with students or young professionals
Understanding of Canadian constitutional and human rights law and institutions
Understanding of law schools and the legal profession
Experience with public outreach through newsletters, web design, social media, blogs, etc.
Ability to work with and motivate diverse stakeholders, including law students; faculty; and community partners such as inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (in Canada), and other civil society actors
Demonstrated commitment to human rights and social justice
Skills:
Excellent computer skills with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications. Proven skill in organizing and maintaining web pages and social media presence. Bilingual in French strongly preferred.
Other:
Excellent administrative and organizational skills, including problem solving and ability to manage conflicting priorities and deadlines
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Excellent relationship building skills, including ability to work independently and in a team
Strong attention to detail
Ability to positively represent the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Faculty of Law at all times, and maintain existing relationships with partnerships and collaborations with diverse external stakeholders
Willingness to be flexible with work hours as the programs and deadlines demand, including working some overtime, and including travel in Canada

APPOINTMENT DETAILS:
This posting is for a part-time (60%) appointment ending two years from the date of hire. There is a possibility of renewal for one additional year
This position is part of the United Steelworkers Union Local 1998 employee group
The pro-rated hiring rate is $31,895.40 with an annual step progression to a maximum of $40,788.60

HOW TO APPLY:
Please visit the following link and click the “Apply Online” button:
https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?job=1600392
Job posting close date: April 18, 2016
—
Canada’s leading teaching and research university, the University of Toronto is recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers, and one of Canada’s Top Employers for Canadians Over 40. U of T offers employees challenging work, flexible, family-friendly programs and opportunities for professional and career development. To learn more about the University of Toronto, please go to http://www.utoronto.ca/. To learn more about U of T as a place to work and develop a career, please visit http://www.hrandequity.utoronto.ca/
The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from visible minority group members, women, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, members of sexual minority groups, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

Clinical Legal Education Conference
2016-07-10 08:00 - 2016-07-13 17:00
THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION PROGRAMMES
The Asper Centre is collaborating with the Association for Canadian Clinical Education and the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education in the organization and hosting of the 2016 Clinical Legal Education Conference at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.
Dates: July 10- 13, 2016
Registration open here on the Eventbrite page. Early Bird Registration closes on April 30 (regular price applies after that date).
Read the Conference Brochure

Working Group Call for Proposals
2016-08-15
2016-2017 WORKING GROUPS
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to propose a 2016/2017 Working Group must email a proposal to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by 5 p.m. on August 15, 2016. Applications should include the following:
a) The name/title of the Working Group
b) The issue the group will be working on, and why the issue is important
c) Name(s) of the student leader(s) and brief background information
d) Name and description of partnership organization, and letter of support from the organization (if applicable)
e) Description of proposed research or advocacy project for the year, including project goals and expected outcomes.
Successful groups will be notified prior to the start of term.
For more detailed information on how to lead a Working Group, read the full call for proposals here.

Call for Asper Centre students 2016/2017
2016-08-26
The deadline for applications for the is August 26, 2016.
Call for Asper Centre students 2016-2017

Asper Centre at Law Clubs week
2016-09-13
Visit the Asper Centre’s information booth to learn more about our work.

(2016)

Asper Centre Information Session
2016-09-15 12:30
Learn how to apply for an Asper Centre summer fellowship to work in an organization within Canada that focuses on constitutional / human rights advocacy.

(2016)

Asper Centre / IHRP 2017 Summer Fellowship Information Session
2016-10-24 12:30 - 14:00
Information about how to apply for an Asper Centre summer fellowship to work in an organization within Canada that focuses on constitutional / human rights advocacy.

(October 2016)

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

Constitutional Roundtable - Claudia Geiringer
2016-11-16 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Claudia Geiringer (Victoria University of Wellington School of Law, New Zealand)
moderated by Professor Kent Roach
Wednesday November 16, 2016 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Falconer Hall Solarium (room FA2)
84 Queen’s Park
Topic: The Strange Antipodean Afterlife of John Hart Ely’s Democracy and Distrust
This paper tells the strange, and little known, story of how John Hart Ely’s process-perfecting theory of constitutional interpretation (of the United States Constitution) became a blueprint for the design of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The paper reflects on Ely’s antipodean afterlife as an instance of the migration of constitutional ideas. It examines the processes of de- and re-contextualization by which Ely’s theory was remodelled and repurposed, during the process of migration, in order to re-fit it for the new legal system. And it suggests that this process of transmogrification augmented the problems of coherence already associated with Ely’s theory. The paper will be of relevance both to those constitutional theorists with an interest in the coherence and legitimacy of process theories generally, and to scholars of comparative constitutional law, who care about the pathways by which constitutional ideas migrate between legal systems.
Professor Claudia Geiringer holds the Chair in Public Law at Victoria University of Wellington School of Law, and is the Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre of Public Law. Her research interests include the constitutional protection of human rights in New Zealand and comparator Commonwealth nations, the laws and procedures of Parliament, and the domestic reception of international law. She currently holds a grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand to write a book on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.
A light lunch will be provided.

Morris A. Gross Lecture - the Honourable George R. Strathy, Chief Justice of Ontario
2017-01-19 16:30 - 18:00
Judicial Courage and Restraint in Canadian Constitutional History
The Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture was established in memory of the late Morris A. Gross by the law firm Minden Gross LLP and by members of his family, friends and professional associates. The intention of the lectureship is to, every two years, bring to the Faculty of Law a distinguished scholar or a member of the practicing bar or bench for discussion with the student body and Faculty, and to deliver the bi-annual Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture.
This year, the Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture will be delivered by the Honourable George R. Strathy, Chief Justice of Ontario, as an introduction to the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ 2017 Constitutional Roundtable series, which will be in celebration of Canada’s Sesquicentennial.
The Honourable George R. Strathy was appointed Chief Justice of Ontario June 13, 2014. He was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario on April 25, 2013. For the previous five years he served as a judge of the Superior Court of Justice in the Toronto Region, where he presided over civil, class action and criminal matters. Chief Justice Strathy received a Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in 1970 and was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to pursue graduate studies. He received a Master of Arts degree in International Relations at the University of Toronto in 1971. He attended the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and was awarded the Gold Medal in 1974.
In practice, he specialized in civil litigation, with particular emphasis in Maritime and Transportation Law. He was a partner in the firms of MacKinnon, McTaggart, Campbell Godfrey and Lewtas, and Fasken Martineau Walker before establishing his own firm in 1991. The firm ultimately became Strathy & Isaacs. He was active in a number of professional organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association (Chair of the Young Lawyers’ Division and member of the Executive Committee), the Canadian Maritime Law Association (Vice-President), the Canadian Association of Maritime Arbitrations (Vice-President), and the Canadian Association of Average Adjusters (Chairman). He is the author of two books on marine insurance in Canada as well as numerous papers and articles.
Chief Justice Strathy is married to Elyse Strathy. They have five daughters and seven grandchildren. He is an enthusiastic, but not particularly talented, squash player, golfer and tandem cyclist.

Constitutional Roundtable - Hugo Cyr
2017-02-09 12:30 - 14:00
Hugo Cyr
Dean and Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory
Université du Québec à Montréal
Normalizing the Exception in Canada
Thursday, February 9, 2017
12:30 – 2:00
Room J-140, Jackman Law Building
78 Queen’s Park
Extraordinary measures may sometimes be justified as being necessary to deal with exceptional events. Those measures may become normalized when the taboo against taking them is broken and their initial justifications are detached from their repeated uses. In this article, I want to highlight the process of normalization of the exception in the Canadian constitutional context. In particular, I wilI show how a situation of extreme necessity may have pushed the Supreme Court to develop an extraordinary constitutional remedy – the suspension of a judgment of unconstitutionality – and how such remedy was later normalized. In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada temporarily suspended the effectiveness of its opinion that all the laws adopted by the Province of Manitoba between 1890 and 1985 were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, ironically, attempted to justify the suspension as being necessary to protect the rule of law. Following that opinion, the Supreme Court gradually went on to use that suspension mechanism in several different contexts. Now, detached from its original justification, this mechanism is used on a purely discretionary basis by judges to suspend the effect of their decisions that certain statutes are unconstitutional. In short, the possibility for Courts to suspend the effectiveness of the Constitution has been normalized, despite the fact that Canada, according to the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1982, is supposedly “founded upon principles that recognize (…) the rule of law”.
Hugo Cyr, LL.B., B.C.L. (McGill), LL.M. (Yale), LL.D. (U. de Montréal), is Dean and Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of the Québec Bar. He is a member of the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (CRIDAQ). He has been a Boulton Fellow at McGill University, a Schell Fellow at Yale Law School, a law clerk to the Honourable Justice Ian C. Binnie of the Supreme Court of Canada, and a Visiting Researcher at the European Academy of Legal Theory and Visiting Professor at McGill University. He is frequently consulted by governments, media and private parties for his expertise in constitutional law.
A light lunch will be provided.

Dr. Anver Emon Special Lecture
2017-02-28 12:30 - 14:00
What’s the fuss about “Islam” and “Muslims” ?
Thinking in an Age of Information Overload
Special Lecture by Dr. Anver Emon
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Religion, Pluralism, and the Rule of Law
University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Moderated by Cheryl Milne, Executive Director Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
From the Brexit referendum in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the US, and the most recent tragedy at a mosque in Quebec City, it is hard not to notice that politicians of various stripes have “Islam” and “Muslims” on the brain. So many want to talk about what “Islam” is or who “Muslims” really are. In this talk, we will explore the political work done when “Islam” and “Muslim” are invoked. Whether as social constructions or literary tropes, “Islam” and “Muslim” become proxies for something that all of us have a stake in defining, but must now reclaim as our own. Professor Emon will offer a framework for filtering the random bits of information that fall from the Twitter-sphere. Also, participants are invited to submit in advance a media headline and story that they want to discuss and problematize.
Participants are invited to submit in advance a media headline/story that they want to discuss and problematize.
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED * LIGHT LUNCH PROVIDED

Feb 28, 2017

Constitutional Roundtable - Richard Haigh
2017-03-01 12:30 - 14:00
ASPER CENTRE CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Richard Haigh
Osgoode Hall Law School
York University
The Alberta Press Case
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
12:30 – 2:00
Room J-140, Jackman Law Building
78 Queen’s Park
This paper/presentation will focus on the Reference re Alberta Statutes case (more colloquially known as the Alberta Press Case). The case is fascinating for a number of reasons. First, it is one of the earliest signals of the Supreme Court of Canada “finding its feet” and gaining a belief in its own stature and strength. Second, it is a case well known for a kind of Denning-like pronouncement from Chief Justice Duff (before Denning was even a judge!) on the idea of an implied bill of rights — judicial creativity that some might say was results-driven, others might say was a brilliantly conceived concept to achieve justice. Third, it is also a case of a province trying to expand its mandate into areas that could not have been easily imagined, and the Court using federalism as a sword. Finally, it may have been the precursor to many debates about whether Canada should have a formal bill of rights, and how we could repatriate our Constitution — put differently, it is a case that foreshadowed much to come in terms of the 1982 amendments.
Richard Haigh is an Assistant Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and Director of York’s Centre for Public Policy and Law and Co-Director of the Part-Time LLM in Constitutional Law at Osgoode. He has a doctorate from the University of Toronto in the area of freedom of conscience and religion. He was, until December 2007, the Associate Director, Graduate Program at Osgoode Professional Development. He has been a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, a Senior Advisor at the National Judicial Institute in Ottawa, and a Legal Research and Writing Lecturer at Osgoode. His research and teaching interests include Constitutional Law, Public Law, and Equity and Trusts. His recent published works include papers on the Supreme Court’s use of metaphor, division of powers in freedom of expression cases, freedom of conscience and whistleblowing, freedom of religion, dialogue theory, noise by-laws, election financing laws and prisoner’s voting rights; he also contributed a chapter to the State and Citizen casebook on Public Law (Emond-Montgomery, 3rd ed.).
A light lunch will be provided.
For more information, contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca

Asper Centre Presents: Careers in Constitutional Law
2017-03-02 12:30 - 14:00
The Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights presents a lunchtime seminar on
Careers in Constitutional Law
Are you a JD Candidate with a passion for promoting Charter rights?
Do you want to learn about the numerous career paths that exist for students wishing to practice Constitutional Law?
MEET and get ADVICE from four lawyers (3 are UTLaw graduates) who are currently working in their field of passion:
Joseph Cheng—Department of Justice
Nader Hasan—Stockwoods Barristers
Dan Rohde—Income Security Advocacy Centre
Cara Zwibel—Canadian Civil Liberties Association
A question and answer period will be included.
Date: 2 March 2017
Time: 12:30 to 2:00pm
Location: J125
Jackman Law Building

A light lunch will be served.
For more information, please contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca

Constitutional Roundtable - Jamie Cameron
2017-03-22 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Jamie Cameron
York University Osgoode Hall Law School
Section 7 and the Idea of the Charter
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
This presentation/paper looks at the idea of the Charter through a s.7 lens. As such, it treats s.7 as a metaphor – as the metaphor – for the central methodological, interpretative, and institutional challenges of Charter decision-making. Section 7 exemplifies the most difficult questions the Supreme Court of Canada has had to consider and has generated the most provocative jurisprudence among the guarantees. Issues of a methodological, doctrinal, and theoretical nature are engaged by s.7 in distinctive ways which nonetheless reflect back on and illustrate Charter themes of general application.
Jamie Cameron is a Professor of Law and has been on the full-time faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School since 1984. She holds law degrees from McGill University and Columbia University, clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada for the Hon. Justice Brian Dickson, and was on the faculty at Cornell Law School before joining Osgoode. Her teaching and research interests include constitutional and Charter law, American constitutional law, criminal law, the Charter’s fundamental freedoms, and s.7’s principles of fundamental justice. In addition to her own scholarship she has organized many conference and events, was editor-in-chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (2006-9), and has been the editor and co-editor of a dozen book collections, including the annual Constitutional Cases volumes, The Charter’s Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Reflections on the Legacy of Justice Bertha Wilson, and The Charter and Criminal Justice: Twenty-Five Years Later.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more information, contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca

Clinical Course Application Deadline
2017-06-30
Deadline for U of T Upper Year Law students to apply for the Asper Centre clinical courses for 2017.
For more information, see the course list on the Faculty of Law website HERE.

Deadline for Submission of Proposal for Asper Centre 2017-2018 Student Working Group
2017-08-15
U of T law students can become involved in the Centre’s work through volunteering with one of our Working Groups.
For information on how to apply to lead a Working Group read the Proposal Requirements below.
If you would like to apply but need some ideas, contact Cheryl Milne or Tal Schreier by email.
This year, in addition to Working Group ideas developed by students, the Asper Centre invites and welcomes proposals from students who would be interested in leading a children’s rights working group, or a social media working group that would assist the Asper Centre in developing web-based and social media based material focused on constitutional issues.
Working Group Proposal Requirements

Application Deadline for Asper Centre Work-Study student
2017-09-13
The Asper Centre is looking for a student to provide research and technical support for the Centre’s website and social media (Facebook and Twitter). The position involves some research and drafting for content to be uploaded to the Centre’s website related to Canadian constitutional law and the activities of the Centre (primarily case summaries). Training will be provided in respect to website; therefore, in-depth knowledge of website development, maintenance and design, although helpful, is not required. Apply by September 13th 2017 at 5:00 p.m. through the University’s Career Centre page: http://cln.utoronto.ca (Job No. 101096).

Asper Centre & IHRP Student Working Group Information Session
2017-09-19 12:30 - 14:00 | J250 Jackman Law Building
JD students in all years can volunteer with one of the Asper Centre student working groups, that are led by upper year students. Working groups prepare policy briefs, organize workshops, and conduct research on emerging constitutional issues.
This year, there are three Asper Centre student working groups:

The Refugee and Immigration Law working group
The Indigenous Rights working group
Police Oversight working group

Find out more about these working groups at the Asper Centre & IHRP (International Human Rights Program) Student Working Group Information Session on September 19, 2017 at 12:30PM in J250 in the Jackman law building.

Constitutional Roundtable: Richard Albert
2017-09-27 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Richard Albert
Professor, Boston College Law School
The Most Powerful Court in the World?
Constitutional Amendment after the Senate Reform and Supreme Court Act References
Discussant:
Associate Professor Yasmin Dawood
Canada Research Chair in Democracy, Constitutionalism & Electoral Law
University of Toronto
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
12:30 – 2:00PM
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
The Supreme Court of Canada has grown since Confederation from supreme in name alone into the guardian of Canada’s constitutional identity, joining high courts in Colombia, India, Israel, Germany, South Africa and the United States in contention for the title of the most powerful court in the world. Over the decades since its creation in 1875, the Canadian Supreme Court has acquired increasing importance in constitutional law and politics as a result of both constitutional design and the gradual accretion of authority that derives from reasoned judgments, legislative deference and public support. As the Constitution of Canada marks its sesquicentennial, the Supreme Court has acquired a new power that will make it the gatekeeper to constitutional reform in the years ahead: the power to rule whether a proposed constitutional amendment is constitutional.
The recent Senate Reform and Supreme Court Act References reveal the blueprint for how the Court will exercise this extraordinary power under its reference jurisdiction in future litigation challenging the validity of a proposed constitutional amendment: the Court will determine which of the five procedures in Canada’s amending formula political actors must use to formalize any proposed amendment. The source of the Court’s new power is the doctrine and theory of the Constitution’s “architecture”—the Court’s own innovation whose content and boundaries are determined by the Court alone, even where the proposed amendment may affect the Court itself.
Richard Albert is a tenured Associate Professor and Nicholson Scholar at Boston College Law School. His scholarship focuses on constitutional amendment in comparative, doctrinal, historical and theoretical perspectives. He is currently writing a book on constitutional amendment, to be published by Oxford University Press. He is also co-editor of the forthcoming volumes: Canada in the World: Comparative Perspectives on the Canadian Constitution (Cambridge), The Foundations and Traditions of Constitutional Amendment (Hart), and the Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Constitutions (Oxford). A former law clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Albert holds degrees in law and political science from Yale, Oxford and Harvard.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

Senator Kim Pate: "The Need to Correct Corrections: The Case for Judicial Oversight"
2017-10-16 12:30 - 14:00
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is hosting a lunchtime discussion with Senator Kim Pate.
“The Need to Correct Corrections: The Case for Judicial Oversight“
Monday October 16th at 12:30pm in Jackman Law Building J140
Kim Pate was appointed to the Senate of Canada on November 10, 2016. First and foremost, the mother of Michael and Madison, she is also a nationally renowned advocate who has spent the last 35 years working in and around the legal and penal systems of Canada, with and on behalf of some of the most marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized — particularly imprisoned youth, men and women.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more information, contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca
