Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Alison Young
2024-01-11 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto) | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian and comparative constitutional law.

On Thursday January 11, 2024, the Asper Centre presented a lunchtime Constitutional Roundtable with
Professor Alison Young
The Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law & Director of Research at the Cambridge University Faculty of Law, about her new book, Unchecked Power? How Recent Constitutional Reforms Are Threatening UK Democracy (2023, Bristol University Press)
Time: 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location: (Room FA2), Falconer Hall 84 Queen’s Park, Faculty of Law
All Are Welcome * No Registration Required * Light Lunch Provided

About the Book
Is the UK government really acting for the people? Or does this rhetoric simply justify an executive power-grab? For some, Boris Johnson’s premiership epitomised how far the UK’s democracy has been captured by populism and the Prime Minister seemed more concerned about fulfilling the wishes of the British people than with following the rules or listening to Parliament.
Events like ‘Partygate’ grabbed the headlines. Criticisms of Boris Johnson’s actions eventually led to his resignation and replacement as leader of his party and Prime Minister. Some feel that this shows that the UK’s constitution is healthy, with checks and balances in place to prevent any possible abuse of power.
While these events attracted much media attention, other constitutional changes have been taking place with little public awareness. These have strengthened governmental powers and weakened political and legal checks over governmental actions. Deliberation is being replaced by rhetoric and principles of good government no longer seem to restrain the actions of those in power.
Alison Young provides the first consolidated account of these changes, arguing that the UK is currently on a constitutional cliff-edge which endangers democracy and good constitutional government. She argues that more is needed to shore up the UK’s post-Brexit constitution to prevent it collapsing into a system of unchecked power.
From https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/al-young/77940:
“Professor Young’s Interests
I research in all aspects of public law, both of the UK and the EU. My main interest is in constitutional theory, particularly dialogue theory, where I draw comparisons between different means of protecting human rights. I’m also interested in comparative public law, specifically drawing comparisons between UK law, EU law, the law in other commonwealth countries and France. I also have research interests in freedom of expression and in the protection of human rights through private law.
I have published widely in all of these areas, and am the author of Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act (Hart Publishing, 2009). I was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2015. The Fellowship enabled me to write a book on dialogue theory, Democratic Dialogue and the Constitution (OUP, 2017), which was a runner up for the main Inner Temple Book Prize, 2018.
Professor Young’s CV / Biography
I am the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Robinson College. I am also currently a legal advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution and an academic associate at 39 Essex Chambers. I am a member of the Editorial Board of European Public Law, and of Public Law. I’m also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I’m a trustee of The Constitution Society and a member of the UK Constitution Monitoring Group. I’m affiliated with the Oxford Human Rights Hub and with the Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government, both at the University of Oxford. I am also an Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford.
Before joining the University of Cambridge I studied for a Law (with French) degree at the University of Birmingham, spending a year at the Université de Limoges as part of my degree. I then completed the BCL and D Phil at Hertford College, University of Oxford. I spent three years as a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to Hertford as a Fellow in Law and later Professor of Public Law at the University of Oxford. At Oxford I completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and received awards for Teaching Excellence and Innovation from the University of Oxford.”

Constitutional Roundtable with Professors Kerri Froc and Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin on the QCCA decision in Hak v. Attorney General of Quebec
2024-03-13 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
The Asper Centre Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian and comparative constitutional law.

We are pleased to host Associate Professor Kerri Froc (UNB Law) in conjunction with Assistant Professor Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin (U of T Law) for a Constitutional Roundtable on March 13, 2024 in the Solarium, Falconer Hall, Faculty of Law.
Professors Froc and Bédard-Rubin will break down the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision in Hak et al. c. Procureur général du Québec, concerning the constitutionality of Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State. This appeal concerns freedom of expression, freedom of religion and equality rights, as Muslim women in Quebec who wear religious symbols such as the niqab or hijab would be prohibited from working in certain professions and in most parts of public administration, and prevented from benefitting from some public services because the law requires them to do so with their faces uncovered. The government of Quebec also pre-emptively used the override clause to prevent any constitutional challenges to the legislation. This Constitutional Roundtable will cover what this decision means for Charter rights, gender equality, and state use of the “notwithstanding clause.”
Kerri Froc is an Associate Professor at UNB Law, as well as a Trudeau and Vanier Scholar. She has taught courses at Carleton University, Queen’s University and University of Ottawa on feminist legal theory and various aspects of public law, among others.
Kerri received her PhD from Queen’s University in 2016 and holds a Master of Laws from the University of Ottawa, a Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Regina.
Before completing her doctorate, she spent 18 years as a lawyer, as a civil litigator in Regina, a staff lawyer for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and as a staff lawyer in the areas of law reform and equality at the Canadian Bar Association. She is a member of the Saskatchewan and New Brunswick bars.
Assistant Professor Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin’s work explores Canadian constitutional culture from historical and comparative perspectives. He studied law, political science, and philosophy at Université Laval, Yale University, and the University of Toronto. During his doctoral studies, Jean-Christophe was the McMurty Fellow of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholar. He has done consultancy work on constitution-building for International IDEA and, prior to his graduate studies, he worked in litigation for the Quebec Department of Justice.
Bédard-Rubin currently pursues two main research projects. The first is an intellectual history of the foundations of public law in French Canada. This project seeks to reconstruct the intellectual networks in which French Canadian public lawyers participated to excavate the transatlantic influences on the formation of Quebec’s legal syncretism. This genealogical reconstruction recovers the conceptual and theoretical innovations that allowed French Canadians to articulate a genuine theory of the state outside of the revolutionary framework. In so doing, this work sheds a different, somewhat oblique light on Canada’s constitutional experience and questions its status in comparative constitutional scholarship.
The second research project investigates judicial bilingualism in Canada. Using mixed social science methods, this project explores the various empirical impacts of bilingualism on judicial behaviour, the normative significance of legal bilingualism for the authority of judicial decisions, and the ways in which language shapes the dominant conception of the judicial role in Canada’s French and English public spheres.
Jean-Christophe’s work has been published in English and French in the Review of Constitutional Studies, the Canadian Journal of Law & Society, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, the Bulletin d’histoire politique, and the International Journal of Canadian Studies, amongst others.
All are welcome * Light lunch provided * No registration required

Launch of “Improving Access to Abortion Services in Canada: A What We Heard Report"
2024-03-14 12:30 - 13:30 | P115 Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's Park Cres, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C5, Canada
Celebrating the Launch of “Improving Access to Abortion Services in Canada: A What We Heard Report”
The Asper Centre’s Reproductive Rights Working Group produced a report to be used as an advocacy tool to improve access to abortion services in Canada. The report covers the critical findings and recommendations of an Expert Panel convened in 2023 and includes an overview of the current landscape of reproductive rights in Canada.
On Thursday March 14, 2024 @12:30-1:30pm EST (this is a hybrid event, also available by Zoom) in room P115, Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 78 Queens Park Cres, we celebrated the lunch of the report with an introduction from 2 of the report authors, U of T Law JD students Ian T. D. Thomson and Lauren Di Felice and comments by:

Prof Rebecca Cook (Professor Emerita, U of T Law and Co-Director, International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program at the University of Toronto)
Prof Brenda Cossman (U of T Law)
Kat Owens (Project Director, LEAF)
Prof Charmaine Williams (Dean & Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto)

About the Asper Centre & Background to the report
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is devoted to realizing constitutional rights through advocacy, research, and education. The Asper Centre aims to play a vital role in articulating Canada’s constitutional vision to the broader world. The Asper Centre regularly convenes student working groups that prepare policy briefs, draft public legal information materials, organize workshops and conduct research on current or emerging constitutional law issues. The Asper Centre’s Reproductive Rights Working Group was convened in September 2022.
The Reproductive Rights Working Group originated as a reaction to the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in which the United States Supreme Court overturned the holding of Roe v Wade that previously maintained abortion access as a constitutional right. The Working Group sought to investigate and respond to the growing concern of how Dobbs may implicate reproductive rights in Canada and whether the Canadian regime is similarly vulnerable. Accordingly, the Working Group organized an expert panel of leading minds in the field, the purpose of which was to investigate these pressing issues and to yield recommendations for policy makers.
VIEW THE WEBCAST OF THE EVENT HERE

Clinic Information Session - for U of T Law upper year students
2024-06-25 12:30 - 13:30 | Online Zoom Meeting
On June 25, 2024 at 12:30pm the Asper Centre’s Executive Director, Cheryl Milne, will be taking part in a Clinic Information Session (via Zoom), for University of Toronto Faculty of Law upper year students.

This information session provided details on how to enroll in the for-credit clinical programs, including the Asper Centre Clinic, for Fall 2024. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions at this Zoom Meeting.

View the recording of the event HERE

Application due date for Student Working Group Proposals
2024-08-15 17:00 | N/A
Dear Upper Year JD Students at U of T Law:
We are currently accepting proposals from upper year students who are interested in leading or renewing a student working group at the Asper Centre next year. Please find the Call for Proposals for 2024-25 Asper Centre Working Groups HERE. The application is due at EOD on Thursday August 15, 2024.
Working groups at the Asper Centre provide law students with a unique opportunity to conduct legal research and advocacy on Canadian Constitutional and Charter rights issues, often in partnership with an external organization and members of the bar. Examples of past working groups at the Asper Centre and more information about our working groups may be found at http://aspercentre.ca/clinic/student-working-groups/.
This coming year, the Asper Centre welcomes proposals from students who would be interested in leading a working group focused on indigenous peoples’ rights or children’s rights, however all proposals will be equally considered. If you would like to apply to lead a working group but need some assistance in developing your working group proposal, please contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca.
Thank you for your interest and we look forward to working with you.
Successful groups will be notified prior to the start of Fall 2024 term.

Extended Deadline for Asper Centre Clinic Course
2024-08-19 17:00
Attention current Upper Year students at Uof T Law!
There are spaces available in the Asper Centre Fall clinic for upper year students.
Please send your one-page statement of interest to Executive Director Cheryl Milne (cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca) by 5:00 p.m. Monday, August 19th.

Asper Centre Working Group Information Session
2024-09-12 12:30 - 14:00 | J250 Jackman Law Building Moot Court
Attention all current law students, especially 1L’s!
The Asper Centre will be convening an Information Session on Thurs Sept 12, 2024 in J140 at 12h30 to recruit volunteers for its student working groups. Please join us for lunch and learn how to work with us!
This year, we are excited to support the following student working groups:

Interveners
Encampments and the Charter
The Notwithstanding Clause

Application Due Date for Work-Study positions
2024-09-20 17:00
The Asper Centre is hiring 2 work-study students this year. See below for details.
I. Research and Communications Assistant
The student will be responsible for researching and drafting content for the Asper Centre website and social media, including case summaries and commentary. Duties will also include attending and reporting on Asper Centre events, such as workshops and conferences, and providing substantive content for online and print newsletters. Website (WordPress) experience is helpful but not essential, as training will be provided. Students must be enrolled in the JD or LLM programs at the Faculty of Law.
Apply through CLNx – Job Posting #238844
Deadline: September 20, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
II. Research Assistant – Environmental Rights Project
The student will be responsible for researching and drafting content for a guide to environmental rights in Ontario. A draft document has been completed by student working groups. Duties will include researching and updating the law and editing the document for plain language accessibility. The Research Assistant will also be involved in liaising with our community partner and designing the final version of the guide for online publication. Students must be enrolled in the JD or LLM programs at the Faculty of Law. Strong preference for an upper year or graduate student.
Apply through CLNx – Job posting #238847
Deadline: September 20, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.

Application Deadline for Research Associate Position
2024-10-04 23:59
The Asper Centre is hiring a Research Associate limited Term (2 year Term).
More information here: https://jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-Research-Associate-Limited-Term-David-Asper-Centre-for-Constitutional-Rights-ON/584373817/
Application Deadline: October 4, 2024 at 11:59PM ET

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

Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Richard Bellamy
2024-11-12 12:45 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
The Asper Centre is pleased to present a lunchtime Constitutional Roundtable by Professor Richard Bellamy (Professor of Political Science at the University College of London) on Tuesday November 12, 2024, at 12h45 EST on “Democracy through Courts?” based on a chapter of his forthcoming book titled Defending the Political Constitution.

ABSTRACT: The democratic critique of judicial review by constitutional courts has prompted its defenders to counter that courts have democratic qualities as good as, and in certain respects even stronger than, conventional democratic politics. This article offers a critical analysis of three arguments favouring this approach. The first argues that constitutional courts operate as exemplars of democratic deliberation. In particular, they give expression to the public reasons underlying democracy and ensure democratic practice does not subvert its ideals. The second holds that rights-based litigation offers a form of democratic participation, providing a voice to those who might have been excluded from electoral democracy. The third contends that judges operate in a similar way to elected representatives, who are best conceived as trustees rather than as delegates. All three views are found wanting. Courts do possess certain limited democratic qualities. However, they are not intrinsic features of courts themselves. They arise from their being dependent upon rather than independent from the conventional democratic process.
*All are welcome * Light Lunch provided * No Registration Required*

Constitutional Roundtable with Prof Margot Young
2025-01-14 12:30 - 14:00 | Flavelle FL219 – John Willis Classroom
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
We are pleased to be hosting Professor Margot Young (Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC) for a Constitutional Roundatble on January 14, 2025, about her book chapter in our recent publication Litigating Equality (Lexis Nexis, 2023). The presentation and book chapter is titled: Zombie Concepts: Contagion in Canadian Equality Law.
ABSTRACT: Jurisprudence under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has not forged an easy or seemingly consistent path. The most recent decision about equality from the Supreme Court of Canada, R v Sharma, is illustration of this assertion. Here, the equality harm the claimant, an Indigenous woman, faces could not be starker: a toxic mix of racism, sexism, and the legacy of settler colonialism. Yet, the majority judgment finds no evidence of discriminatory harm. While claiming adhenrence to past doctrinal formulations, this judgment recasts significantly recent tests for section 15, scaffolding their rejection of the equality claim with much criticized and, in many instances, disavowed concepts from equality law’s history. These are the zombie concepts of equality thought: causation, arbitrariness and negative obligation. The metaphor of the zombie highlights the continual dismissal and then resurrection of these notions as markers of a deep judicial anxiety stalking equality rights law. The repeat appearance of thee somnambulist concepts reveals another haunting – the transformative promise of substantive equality is itself spoiled by judicial anxieties around both social change and institutional role.
BIO: Margot Young is Professor in the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. After studying at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, and the University of California, Berkeley, Professor Young began her teaching career at the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. In 2002, she moved to the University of British Columbia.
Professor Young teaches in the areas of constitutional and social justice law. She was the Director of the Social Justice Specialization at the law school and has organized the Law and Society Speakers Series for close to a decade. Professor Young served three terms as Chair of the university-wide Faculty Association Status of Women Committee. She is a research associate with Green College, the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Centre for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC.
Professor Young’s research interests focus on equality law and theory, women’s economic equality, urban theory, and local housing politics and rights. She is also working on the intersections between environmental justice, social justice, feminism, and human rights. Professor Young was co-editor of the collection Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship and Legal Activism and was Co-Principal Investigator of the Housing Justice Project (HousingJustice.ca). She is widely published in a variety of journals and edited books.
Professor Young is a member of the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of Women and Law, the Review of Constitutional Studies, Studies in Housing Law and is on the advisory board of the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice. In 2016, she became co-editorship of the Law and Society Review.
Professor Young is active in a variety of professional and community organizations. She sits on the boards for Justice for Girls and the David Suzuki Foundation. She is Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-BC Office. Professor Young works with provincial and national women’s equality groups during United Nation committees’ periodic reviews of Canada’s human rights record, travelling as an NGO representative to these meetings in New York and Geneva. More specifically, she works with the BC CEDAW Group and the Feminist Alliance for International Action.
Professor Young is a frequent commentator in the media on a variety of issues to do with social justice and socio-economic rights issues. Interviews include local, national, and international print, television, and radio coverage of key constitutional, equality, and civil liberties issues.
All are welcome * No RSVP Required * Light lunch provided

Litigating Equality - Book Launch Event
2025-01-16 17:00 - 18:30 | J140 Jackman Law Building, University of Toronto
Reflections on Litigating Equality in Canada:
An Asper Centre Book Launch Event
Please join us on Thursday January 16, 2025 at 5pm for a special panel discussion to celebrate the launch of our publication, Litigating Equality (Lexis Nexis, 2024)!
Over the past decade, a number of decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada have revised the way that section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is applied to legislation and government action, leaving the jurisprudence shifting and uncertain. In light of this, the Asper Centre convened a full day symposium in 2023 to critically examine the status of equality litigation in Canada, which resulted in a collection of papers that were published by Lexis Nexis in 2024 in Litigating Equality. The book “delves into many of the resulting difficulties and offers strategies for litigators as well as carving out issues for future academic research. Contributors include leading scholars of equality and members of prominent advocacy groups for equality rights in Canada whose litigation efforts have helped to shape the concepts of substantive equality and discrimination.”
The panel event will include presentations from 4 of the contributors to the book and will be moderated by Prof Sophia Moreau, the co-editor of the book. The panelists are:
Cheryl Milne – ED of the Asper Centre, co-editor of Litigating Equality, and co-author of “Analyzing the Treatment of Multiple Charter Claims: Judicial Restraint and the Case for Section 15”
Prof Anthony Sangiuliano – Author of “Finding Fault under Section 15 of the Charter: Miller J.A.’s Court of Appeal Dissent in Sharma”
Prof Margot Young – Author of “Zombie Concepts: Contagion in Canadian Equality Law”
Adriel Weaver – Co-author or “Demonstrating Discrimination: Judicial Notice, Legislative and Social Framework Facts and the Politics of Intervention”
All are Welcome * Light Refreshments * No Registration Required
[If you cannot attend in person, please join us by Zoom via this link: https://zoom.us/j/91355322394?pwd=KZuNhG6e2kvSLz0QvCMSrORYChJRoN.1 ]

Constitutional Roundtable with Prof David Vitale
2025-02-11 12:30 - 14:00 | Flavelle FL219 – John Willis Classroom
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
The Constitutional Roundtable Series is pleased to present a Roundtable with Professor David Vitale on February 11, 2025 at 12:30pm
Title: Trust, Courts and Social Rights: A Trust-Based Framework for Social Rights Enforcement
Summary: Trust, Courts and Social Rights proposes an innovative legal framework for judicially enforcing social rights that is rooted in public trust in government or ‘political trust’. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book draws on theoretical and empirical scholarship on the concept of trust across disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology and political theory. It integrates that scholarship with the relevant public law literature on social rights, fiduciary political theory and judicial review. In doing so, the book uses trust as an analytical lens for social rights law – importing ideas from the scholarship on trust into the social rights literature – and develops a normative argument that contributes to the controversial debate on how courts should enforce social rights. Also global in focus, the book uses cases from courts in Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America to illustrate how the trust-based framework operates in practice.
Bio: David Vitale is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, School of Law. He is also currently the UK Principal Investigator for a multi-institution, Trans-Atlantic Platform project on ‘Open Constitutional Democracy’ funded by the ESRC (UK), SSHRC (Canada) and SNSF (Switzerland) . His work has been published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Studies and Global Constitutionalism, among others. David holds law degrees from the UK (LSE), the US (NYU) and Canada (Osgoode Hall Law School), as well as a degree in psychology (University of Toronto). He has worked as a judicial clerk to the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Israel, has held various research positions globally and has practised as a litigator in Canada.

The Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture with Kim Murray
2025-02-25 17:00 - 18:30 | Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto 78 Queen’s Park, Room J140, 78 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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 practising bar or bench for discussion with the student body and Faculty, and to deliver the bi-annual Morris A.Gross Memorial Lecture.
The Asper Centre is pleased to convene the Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture for the law school community.

This year, Kimberly Murray will present the special lecture on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 5pm. Murray was the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools until December 2024 and is now an Associate Professor, Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Legal Studies at the Faculty of Law, Queen’s University.
Crimes Against Humanity and Indian Residential Schools in Canada

Abstract: The buildings, burials grounds, and cemeteries on the sites of former Indian Residential Schools are etched deeply in Survivors’ memories. Once places of silence and suffering, they are now sites of truth. Once places of brutal violence and genocide, they are now sites of conscience. Survivors can never forget the memories of trauma and death held in these sites; now Canada, and all Canadians, must do so as well by recognizing that genocide and crimes against humanity were perpetrated on Indigenous Peoples.

Kimberly Murray BA, LLB, LLM, IPC, LL.D. (honoris causa) commenced her new role as Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Legal Studies on January 1, 2025, after completing a federal appointment as the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools.

Murray has dedicated much of her legal career to promoting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and advocating for Indigenous communities. She was the Province of Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice (2015-2022), where she worked to support communities revitalize their Indigenous laws and expanded legal services and programs for Indigenous people.

In 2018-2019, Murray chaired the Expert Panel on Policing in Indigenous Communities, which produced the report Toward Peace Harmony, and Well-Being: Policing in Indigenous Communities.

From 2010-2015, Murray was Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission working to ensure that Survivors were heard and remembered, and she promoted reconciliation across the country.
During her previous 15-year career with Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, she was staff lawyer and then Executive Director, conducting numerous law reform and public legal education activities, and appeared before all levels of court.
She has also served on numerous boards, public committees, and councils; provided advocacy in high-profile public inquiries; published numerous works, position and conference papers; taught law and undergraduate students; and has been recognized with numerous awards.
Murray, is a member of Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk Nation, holds an LLM and LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, a BA from Carleton, and honorary LLDs from Guelph/Humber, Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and the Law Society of Ontario.
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REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Call for Papers: Positive Rights Litigation Symposium
2025-06-30 17:00
Call for Papers
Re-Opening the Door: Litigating Positive Rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights (the Asper Centre) invites papers for a one-day symposium on litigating positive rights under the Charter. The symposium’s goal is to develop our understanding of positive rights in Canada, especially the challenges they currently face and the issues that might arise if positive rights were more robustly recognized under the Charter. The symposium, which will add to the decades-long conversation in Canada among scholars and courts about positive rights, will take place on Friday January 16, 2026, at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
Two decades ago, in Gosselin, the Supreme Court of Canada left the door open to an expansive view of positive rights claims under the Charter. Since then, however, courts across the country have failed to recognize them. Underpinned by caution and concern, this pattern holds across diverse contexts, from the welfare context to the asylum context. Yet, climate change and growing economic inequality have renewed the push for positive rights. Take Mathur v Ontario, for example, the first Charter case concerning climate change to be decided after a full hearing, or the recent housing cases testing the precedent of Tanudjaja v Attorney General of Canada et al. In both contexts, litigants have sought relief for urgent and wide-ranging social issues that are difficult to conceptualize or remedy via a purely negative rights framework. These issues, and the litigation they have spawned, invite a closer inspection of positive rights under the Charter.
Against this backdrop, the Asper Centre is seeking submissions from both scholars and practitioners that address the following key questions:

Is there truly a distinction between positive rights and negative rights under the Charter?
What role should Canadian courts play with respect to positive rights, specifically vis-à-vis Parliament and provincial legislatures? How is this affected by the principles underpinning the separation of powers?
What practical challenges does litigating positive rights pose in areas such as climate change and equality rights?
What is the nature of the social science evidence required to argue or defend these cases?
What does constitutional experience abroad teach us about the potential for positive rights under the Charter?
What are the remedial options for positive rights claims?
What lessons or impacts could be drawn from international law examples?

Located within the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, the Asper Centre is devoted to advocacy, research, and education on constitutional rights in Canada. Since its inception in 2008, the Asper Centre has hosted many conferences and symposia focused on various aspects of Charter and public interest litigation. In 2018, the Asper Centre convened a Public Interest Litigation Conference, focusing on legal strategies for successful public interest litigation and similarly in 2023 held a symposium focusing on equality rights litigation. The resulting papers were published by LexisNexis Canada in the books Public Interest Litigation in Canada and Litigating Equality, with corresponding volumes of the Supreme Court Law Review. This symposium seeks to build on the themes explored in earlier events to contribute to the practical scholarship on public interest litigation and to produce a follow-up publication to these earlier works.
Those interested in participating should send an Abstract (250 words maximum) of your intended paper to Tal Schreier (tal.schreier@utoronto.ca), the Asper Centre’s Program Coordinator. Papers may be at any stage of development, but participants will be expected to circulate a paper of at least 5000 words (final papers should be 5000-10,000 words). Alternatively, we welcome shorter case comments of approximately 2500 words that focus on a single court decision.
Deadline for proposals: June 30, 2025.

Due date for Asper Centre Clinic (for U of T Law students)
2025-07-18 12:00
Attention current Upper Year students at U of T Law who are interested in applying to the Asper Centre Fall clinic for-credit course!
This year, the course will be co-taught by our Executive Director, Cheryl Milne and our 2025 Constitutional Litigator in Residence, Megan Savard.
Please send your one-page statement of interest to Executive Director Cheryl Milne (cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca) by noon on July 18, 2025.

Application due date for Student Working Group Proposals
2025-08-15 17:00
Attention Upper Year JD Students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law:

We are currently accepting proposals from 2Ls and 3Ls who are interested in leading a student working group at the Asper Centre next year. Please find the CALL for PROPOSALS here.

Student working groups at the Asper Centre provide law students with the unique opportunity to conduct legal research and advocacy on current Canadian Constitutional and Charter rights issues, often in partnership with an external organization. Examples of past working groups (including this year’s working groups – listed in the image) at the Asper Centre may be found here.

If you would like to apply to lead a working group but need some assistance in developing your working group proposal, please contact tal.schreier@utoronto.ca.
Applications are due at EOD on August 15, 2025. Successful groups will be notified prior to the start of Fall 2025 term.

We look forward to working with you.

Asper Centre Working Group Information Session
2025-09-11 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law building P120
Attention all current University of Toronto Faculty of Law students, especially 1L’s!
The Asper Centre will be convening an Information Session on Thurs Sept 11, 2025 in P120 at 12h30 to recruit volunteers for its student working groups.
Please join us for lunch and learn how to work with us!
This year, we are excited to support the following student working groups:

Accessible Sex Education (with Egale Canada)
Charter Issues in AI and Predictive Policing (with the Future of Law Lab)
Encampments and the Charter
Indigenous Rights, Environmental Protection, and the Duty to Consult

Come join us for some 🍕🍕🍕 and learn more!

Application Due Date for Work-Study Position
2025-09-22 09:00
🚨We’re Hiring!🚨
The Asper Centre is seeking a Work-Study student as a Research & Communications Assistant✍️📢
In this role, you’ll:
🔹 Research and draft content for our website & social media (including case summaries and commentary)
🔹 Attend and report on Asper Centre events (workshops, conferences, etc.)
🔹 Contribute substantive content to our newsletters
(Website experience is an asset, but training will be provided!)
📚 Applicants must be currently enrolled in the JD or LLM programs at the Faculty of Law.
📝 Apply via CLNx (student job board) by September 22, 2025 at 9:00 AM.
Come be part of our work advancing constitutional rights! ⚖️✨

Constitutional Roundtable with Andrew Stobo Sniderman
2025-10-21 12:30 - 14:00 | Flavelle FL219
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
We are pleased to be hosting writer and lawyer Andrew Stobo Sniderman for a Constitutional Roundtable on Tuesday October 21, 2025 at 12h30.
The presentation is titled: Constitutional silence, Section 36 and Unequal Public Services on Indian Reserves
ABSTRACT: Canada’s belated legal reckoning with unequal public services on Indian reserves is only beginning. This article proceeds in two main parts. First, I address a puzzle: even though the problem of deficient services on reserves endured for decades – and, in many respects, endures still – Canadian courts have hardly addressed its constitutionality. This constitutional silence can appear surprising, even astonishing. Second, I suggest that the curiously neglected section 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which calls for ‘reasonably comparable services’ and ‘essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians,’ should inform the constitutional conversation about unequal services on reserves. The exclusion of reserves from equalization, a principle enshrined in section 36, is a largely-overlooked legal omission that has enabled the problem to fester. Conceiving of section 36’s components as ‘directive principles’ – neither enforceable fundamental rights nor empty political aspirations – helps unlock new possibilities for judicial and political use, particularly in light of the treatment of directive principles in other countries. The language of section 36 has never been explicitly used by a Canadian judge as an interpretive aid. This should change.

BIO: Andrew Stobo Sniderman is an SJD candidate at Harvard Law School and co-author of Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (HarperCollins, 2022). He has published in the University of Toronto Law Journal, the Canadian Bar Review, the Ottawa Law Review, and the International Journal of Refugee Law. He has also argued before the Supreme Court of Canada, served as the human rights policy advisor to the Canadian minister of foreign affairs, and clerked for a judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court.
All are welcome * No RSVP Required * Light lunch provided

Constitutional Roundtable with Professor David M. Rabban
2025-11-13 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice and comparative constitutional law. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
We are pleased to be hosting author and Professor David M. Rabban of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law for an in-person Constitutional Roundtable on Thursday November 13, 2025 at 12h30. A light lunch will be provided.
The presentation is titled: The Meaning of Academic Freedom as a First Amendment Right
ABSTRACT: This talk will trace the judicial development of academic freedom as a First Amendment right of professors, beginning in 1957, and the judicial extension of the First Amendment right of academic freedom to universities, beginning in the 1970s. It will point out that the courts have clearly recognized academic freedom as First Amendment right, but have disagreed about its coverage. Nor have courts developed its meaning, as judges themselves have often complained. I will assert that academic freedom should be understood as a distinctive First Amendment right that protects the expert academic speech of professors and the educational decisions of universities. Academic freedom is related to but differentiated from general First Amendment rights of political expression. I will conclude by applying this understanding of academic freedom to recent intervention by federal and state governments into university affairs.

BIO: Professor Rabban joined the Texas Law faculty in 1983. He served as counsel to the American Association of University Professors for several years; later, served as its general counsel and as chair of its committee on academic freedom and tenure. His teaching and research focus on free speech, academic freedom, higher education and the law, and American legal history. He was a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2016 and of the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University in 2016-17. His most recent book, Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right, was published in 2024.

All are welcome * No RSVP required * Light Lunch provided

Re-Opening the Door: Litigating Positive Rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
2026-01-16 | P120 Jackman Law Building
Litigating Positive Rights Symposium
📅 Friday, January 16, 2026 · 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (ET)📍 Henry N. R. Jackman Faculty of Law, University of Toronto (Room P120)
Overview
Join leading scholars, practitioners, and emerging voices for a one-day symposium exploring how positive rights — rights that require governments to act — can be meaningfully advanced under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. From housing and healthcare to climate and digital regulation, the symposium examines whether Canadian constitutionalism is ready to “re-open the door” first left ajar by the Supreme Court of Canada in Gosselin v. Québec.
About the Symposium
Co-chaired by Cheryl Milne, Executive Director of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, and Professor David Schneiderman of the University of Toronto Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law, this event brings together experts from across Canada and abroad to address both the theory and practice of litigating positive rights claims.
Panel discussions will explore:

The conceptual divide between positive and negative rights
Litigation strategies for social, environmental, and economic rights
Evidence, remedies, and practical challenges in Charter claims
Comparative and international perspectives on positive obligations

A detailed agenda, including panel titles and speakers, will be released soon.
Why This Matters
Climate justice, housing insecurity, healthcare access, and rapidly evolving digital systems are testing the limits of a Charter framed primarily around negative rights. Rethinking positive obligations is fundamentally about imagining what kind of constitutional community Canada aspires to be — one that simply prevents state intrusion, or one that supports human dignity through collective responsibility.
This symposium will inform the third volume in the Asper Centre’s publication series with Lexis Nexis Canada, following:📘 Public Interest Litigation in Canada (2018)📘 Litigating Equality in Canada (2023)
A modest registration fee will apply, with reduced rates for full-time students.CPD accreditation will be sought for this program.
More information and Registration Here

Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Richard Moon
2026-01-27 12:30 - 14:00 | Flavelle FL219 – John Willis Classroom
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.

We are pleased to be hosting Professor Richard Moon for a lunchtime Constitutional Roundtable on January 27, 2026.

Title: “The Limits of State Neutrality in Religious Matters”

Abstract: In their early Charter of Rights judgments, the Canadian courts described religious freedom as a liberty that has two dimensions – the freedom to engage in religious practice without state restriction (unless necessary to advance the public interest) and the freedom from state compulsion to perform a religious practice. However, in later cases the courts have said that the freedom does not simply prohibit state coercion in matters of religion but requires also that the state remain neutral in religious matters. Religion then must be separated from politics and treated as a private matter that falls within the sphere of personal/communal life rather than the political/civic sphere.

The courts, however, have not applied the neutrality requirement in a clear or consistent way. Behind the courts’ partial or inconsistent application of the neutrality requirement lies a complex conception of religious commitment in which religion is viewed as both an aspect of the individual’s identity and as a set of judgments or beliefs made by the individual about truth and right. The challenge for the courts is to find a way to fit this complex conception of religious commitment and its value into a constitutional framework that relies on a distinction between individual choices or commitments that should sometimes be protected as a matter of liberty, and individual attributes or traits that should sometimes be respected as a matter of equality. The constitutional framework (and perhaps more deeply, our conception of rights) imposes this distinction, between judgment and identity, on the rich and complex experience of religious commitment.

Biography: Richard Moon is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Windsor. His most recent books include The Life and Death of Freedom of Expression (U of T Press, 2024), Freedom of Conscience and Religion, 2nd ed. (Irwin Law/ U of T Press, 2024), a co-edited collection, Indigenous Spirituality and Religious Freedom (U of T Press, 2025), and a co-edited Open Access Constitutional Casebook, CanLii Platform (2025)(involving 43 contributors) https://canlii.ca/t/7jt2q .

All are welcome * No RSVP Required * Light lunch provided
