Keynote Speaker: Mary Eberts
Mary Eberts received her BA and LLB from the University of Western Ontario, her LLM from the Harvard Law School, and is enrolled in the SJD program at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. She has practised litigation on Bay Street, and in a specialized smaller law firm which she founded, and continues her law practice as a consulting litigator to lawyers across Canada, on equality and Aboriginal rights issues. Mary Eberts is a co-founder of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and has represented LEAF and others in many of the major equality rights issues at the Supreme Court and in Courts of Appeal since the coming into effect of the Charter. She is writing a book on the history of section 15 of the Charter, to come out this year. She has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada for 19 years, and has recently helped found the Africa-Canada Women’s Human Rights Project, a collaboration of lawyers, academics and activists in Canada, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, to use substantive equality analysis to advance women’s human rights in the four participating countries. Recognition for her work includes the Law Society Medal and the Governor General’s Gold Medal in Honour of the Persons Case.
Law and Development
- Prof. Signa A. Daum Shanks, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Saskatchewan College of Law
Signa Daum Shanks is a specialist in indigenous legal issues and Law and Economics at her home province's university. Before arriving back home to start this position, Professor Daum Shanks was on faculty at the University of Alberta’s School of Native Studies, she worked in Ontario’s Office of the Attorney General (Criminal Appeals Division), the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (in Ottawa), and the Toronto office of Heenan Blakie. Over the past decade, Prof. Daum Shanks has also regularly taught in the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Native Studies. Prof. Daum Shanks articled at Saskatchewan Justice and clerked at the Land Claims Court of South Africa. She completed her LLB at Osgoode Hall, was named her year's Most Outstanding Graduate and also completed an LL.M. at the University of Toronto, where she won the June Callwood Scholarship in Aboriginal Law, the Audacity of Imagination Award from the Law Commission of Canada and was elected a Junior Fellow at Massey College. At Toronto, Prof. Daum Shanks also coached the Aboriginal Rights Moot team for the Faculty of Law and taught The Politics of Aboriginal Government for the Department of Political Science. On the (very important) side, she is also a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Western Ontario. Her research and teaching interests include indigenous rights, constitutionalism, the economic analysis of law, legal history, administrative law and federalism. She is a Saskatchewan Métis.
- Michael Shapcott - Director of Community Engagement, Wellesley Institute
Michael Shapcott is Director of Community Engagement at the Wellesley Institute, an independent non-profit research and policy institute working to advance health equity through community-based research, community engagement, social innovation and policy development. Previously, Michael was a Research Associate with the Centre for Urban and Community Studies where he co-ordinated the Community / University Research Partnerships unit. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading housing policy experts, and is a long-time housing and homelessness advocate. He is the co-editor, with Dr. David Hulchanski, of Finding Room: Policy Options for a Canadian Rental Housing Strategy, the most definitive study on national housing issues. He has written chapters for books on health, housing, poverty and urban issues. He has worked at the local, provincial, national and international levels on both governmental and non-governmental initiatives. For almost a decade, he was Manager of Government Relations and Communications , Ontario Region for the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. From 1990 to 1993, he was coordinator of the Rupert Pilot Project, an innovative community development project to provide housing and services for 525 rooming house tenants. Previously, he was a community worker with homeless adults at the Toronto Christian Resource Centre. Mr. Shapcott spent ten years as a journalist, working as a reporter, columnist, and editor at several newspapers. He continues to produce popular education and research materials on housing and homelessness issues and contribute opinion pieces for national and local media. He is a keynote speaker for local, provincial, national and international audiences on housing, homelessness, poverty, environment, urban and social justice issues. He attended the Faculty of General Studies at the University of Calgary and the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, where he completed the Intensive Programme in Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services, specializing in landlord and tenant law.
- Barbara A. Gosse, MScPl - Director of Saving and Asset-Building Initiatives, SEDI
Barbara is Director of Saving and Asset-Building Initiatives with SEDI (Social and Enterprise Development Innovations), a national, non-profit charitable organization that is dedicated to finding solutions to assist Canada’s low-income individuals and families to become economically self-sufficient. Barbara’s duties have included managerial responsibility of SEDI’s $34 million learn$ave project as well as the development, implementation and on-going operation of the Independent Living Account Project for persons living within transitional housing. She is also responsible for the development, research and investigation of new asset-building and financial literacy opportunities and project innovations.
Before joining SEDI, in August 2000, Barbara held positions with both the private and public sectors including a large Toronto Law Firm, Provincial and Municipal governments.
Ms. Gosse has a Masters Degree in Community Planning and Policy Analysis from the University of Toronto and an undergraduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Ryerson Polytechnical University. She Chairs SEDI’s Asset-Building Advisory Committee.
She resides in Toronto, Ontario with her husband and three boys.
Joe Deschênes Smith is the Vice President Partnerships of Home Ownership Alternatives Non-Profit Corporation (HOA), a non-profit financial corporation dedicated to making home ownership possible for low and moderate income families. HOA supports the development of environmentally and socially sustainable communities that provide the basis for low and moderate income households to create family equity and have positive social impacts.
Joe has the primary responsibility for establishing and maintaining relationships with government, private and non-profit partners and managing corporate communications. Joe is actively engaged in moving forward HOA’s strategy to expand both geographically and with many new development partners.
Joe brings experience to HOA from the public and private sectors with policy, operations and financial experience. Most recently Joe was Chief of Staff to the Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing where he had a hand in the development of several recent policy initiatives such as the New Planning Act, City of Toronto Act, the new Municipal Act, the Residential Tenancies Act, the 2007 Building Code as well as new housing programs such as the Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program (“AHP”), ROOF and the Ontario Rent Bank. Joe was previously Director of Research Operations at St Michael’s Hospital and Director of Finance at the Hugh MacMillan Rehab Centre.
Joe has an MBA from McGill University in Montreal and an honours degree from the University of Toronto.
Refugee Rights: Sexual-Orientation Claims
- Sean Rehaag - Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School.
Prior to joining the Osgoode faculty in 2008, Prof. Rehaag was a visiting scholar at the University of Montreal’s Chaire de recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations. He has also been a visiting scholar with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings, a visiting researcher at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and an instructor at the University of Victoria and the University of Sherbrooke. His doctoral dissertation, which received the Alan Marks Medal for best graduate thesis in 2008 at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, used a legal pluralist approach to assess the competing legal claims that arise when faith-based communities offer sanctuary to unsuccessful refugee claimants to prevent their deportation. Professor Rehaag’s research and teaching focus on migration law and human rights, as well as on the role that legal norms and institutions play in controversies that implicate multiple communities.
- Nicole LaViolette, B.A. (Honours)(Carleton), LL.B. (Ottawa), LL.M. (Cantab.), of the Ontario Bar.
Nicole LaViolette is Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa. Her research and publications are devoted mainly to international human rights, international humanitarian law, and the rights of refugees. She is also interested in lesbian and gay legal issues, feminist theory and transnational family law. Professor LaViolette has published several articles on sexual minorities and the refugee determination system. In 1999, she was awarded the Lambda Foundation Award for Excellence in Gay and Lesbian Studies for her work on the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board’s Gender Guidelines and their impact on sexual orientation and sexual identity claims.
El-Farouk Khaki is a queer African Muslim man of colour, a feminist and an immigrant.
He has lived in Toronto since 1989. Since that time, he has been active and outspoken as a human rights advocate and a refugee lawyer primarily representing those seeking protection due to their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and/or HIV status.
The original founder of Salaam, a support group for queer Muslims in 1991, El-Farouk has served on the boards of the Toronto Mayor's Committee for Community & Race Relations, and The 519 Community Centre. He is currently the elected chair of Africans in Partnership Against AIDS, and sits on the Boards of Salaam: Queer Muslim Community, Egale Canada and the Canadian Muslim Union, of which he is the Secretary General. He is also one of the founders of The Muslim AIDS Project, a newly formed group promoting discourse and education on HIV in Muslim Communities as well as support and community to Muslims living with HIV/AIDS; and co-founder with his partner Troy Jackson of Human+, a project dedicated to exploring the intersectionalities of our common humanity. .
In 2006, El-Farouk was the first recipient of the Pride Toronto Award for Spirituality. In Spring 2007, he received the Steinert and Ferreiro Award from the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal Foundation for his "major role in paving the way in Canada for refugee protection on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender", and because he has "broke ground" by raising sexual orientation and gender issues in the Muslim community.
Also in 2007, El-Farouk was honoured with the Canadian Bar Association's Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Conference [SOGIC] Hero Award for contributions made in the area of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people for his work with refugees who are sexual minorities or suffering from HIV.
In 2008, El-Farouk ran twice for MP in Toronto Centre for the NDP.
On April 2, 2009, he was elected the Grand Marshall for the Toronto Pride Parade 2009. He was the recipient of the Theme Award ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’. His float in the Parade was sponsored by Human+; Africans in Partnership against AIDS; Salaam: Queer Muslim Community; and the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. It won the ‘Best Embodiment of the LGBTTIQQ2S’ Award.
El-Farouk continues to advocate and regularly speak on a variety of issues including the immigration system, multiculturalism, racism, progressive Muslim issues, Islam, human rights, gender and homo/sexuality.
It is with much sadness and regret that we report the clan mothers
will be unable to participate in this year's spinlaw panel on the
rights of aboriginal children. Unfortunately, there is has been a death
in the community and the clan mothers must condole and lift the hearts
of the community back up. Our deepest sympathies go out to the people
of six nations.
- Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux - Asst. Professor in Aboriginal Studies, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
Dr. Wesley-Esquimaux has dedicated her life to building bridges of understanding between people. She has a particular interest in developing creative solutions to complex social issues and sees endless merit in bringing people from diverse cultures, ages, and backgrounds together to engage in practical dialogue. Cynthia is an Advisory Member of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, holder of the Nexen Chair in Aboriginal Leadership at the Banff Centre in Alberta, a returning member of the Lake Simcoe Science Advisory Committee, and an active and engaging media representative. In addition, she is the new Liberal Candidate for the York Simcoe Riding and is busy campaigning for the next Federal Election. Cynthia is a member of the Chippewa of Georgina Island First Nation in Lake Simcoe and has made a life-long commitment to educating the public about the history and culture of the Native peoples of Canada. Her areas of interest include historical and political relations, historic trauma, national reconciliation, and positive youth engagement through the Canadian Roots Exchange project.
Health Law
Colleen M. Flood is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. She is also the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research. She is also an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toronto and is cross-appointed into the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the School of Public Policy.
Professor Flood obtained her B.A. and LL.B. (Honours) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and her LL.M. and SJD from the University of Toronto, Canada. Her primary area of scholarship is in comparative health care policy, public/private financing of health care systems, health care reform, and accountability and governance issues more broadly. She has been consulted on comparative health policy and governance issues by both the Senate Social Affairs Committee studying health care in Canada and by the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (the Romanow Commission). She is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and reports as well as the author and editor of seven books:
1) Administrative Law in Context (Emond Montgomery, 2008) (co-edited with Lorne Sossin).
2) Exploring Social Insurance: Can a Dose of Europe Cure Canadian Health Care Finance? (McGill-Queen’s, 2008) (co-edited with Mark Stabile and Carolyn Tuohy)
3) Canadian Health Law and Policy (3rd edition) (co-edited with J. Downie & T. Caulfield) (LexisNexis, 2007).
4) Just Medicare: What’s In, What’s Out, How We Decide (editor) (Toronto: UTP, 2006);
5) Access to Justice, Access to Care: The Legal Debate over Private Health Insurance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005) (co-edited with Kent Roach and Lorne Sossin).
6) Canadian Health Law and Policy (2nd edition, Butterworths, 2002) (co-edited with Jocelyn Downie & T. Caulfield).
7) International Health Care Reform: A Legal, Economic and Political Analysis, (Routledge: London, 2000). This book, originally published in hard-back was re-released as a paperback in 2003.
- Michael Gordon, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Michael Gordon, MD, MSc, FRCPC.In addition to his contributions to the field of geriatric medicine,Dr. Gordon has written and spoken widely on the field of medical ethics, especially in relation to the elderly and to end-of-life situations. He is a member of the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics and in this capacity is involved in ethics education primarily for health care providers. He writes on ethics for medical publications, with articles on medical ethics that appeared in the Annals of Long-Term Care as well as Canada’s Medical Post.
During his years at the University of Toronto he has taught medical students and post-graduate medical trainees. He has served on many national, provincial and health organization’s committees and boards including the Canadian National Advisory Council on Aging, the Ontario Drug Benefit Program’s Quality and Therapeutics Committee. He continues to serve on the the College of Physicians of Ontario, and on the Provincial Coroner’s Committee on Geriatrics and Long-Term.
He has contributed to many corporations as they develop programs for the care of the elderly, including mostPicture of Parenting Your Parents, which he co-authored with Bart Mindszenthy, recently Pfizer’s More than Medication program. He is the Chair of the advisory board of EnCircle® at Canada’s Bank of Montreal-Harris Private Bank as well as a member of the advisory board of the EnCircle® program at Harris Private Bank in the United States.
Parenting Your Parents, which he co-authored with Bart Mindszenthy, is his prior book to Brooklyn Beginnings. It deals with the joys, trials and tribulations of aging.
Parenting Your Parents published by Dundurn Press in the spring of 2002, has had a second Canadian edition published in February 2005, The American edition was published in the fall of 2006. To learn more about this book view here Parenting Your Parents.
Tess Sheldon is a lawyer at ARCH Disability Law Centre,
responsible for the clinic's research on access to administrative
justice for persons with disabilities. She has worked with ARCH
Disability Law Centre in a variety of roles since 2003.
ARCH Disability Law Centre is a specialty community legal aid clinic
dedicated to defending and advancing the equality rights of people with
disabilities in Ontario. ARCH provides legal services to help Ontarians
with disabilities live with dignity and participate fully in our
communities. We work with Ontarians with disabilities and the
disability community on law reform and policy initiatives, community
development, legal advice and referrals, public legal education and
litigation.
Future of Equality Rights
Moderator: Mary Eberts
Fay Faraday is a partner at the Toronto law firm, Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish LLP. Fay represents unions, employees and civil society in constitutional and appellate litigation, human rights, labour, pay equity, education and administrative law. She is co-leader of the firm’s Human Rights Practice Group and has represented clients in constitutional litigation at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She also participates with various community groups to provide strategic and policy advice on human rights and constitutional issues. In her practice, Fay has addressed a wide range of issues relating to gender and work, rights of persons with disabilities, rights of migrant workers, race discrimination, employment equity, poverty, income security, and international human rights norms. Fay graduated as the gold medalist from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1993 and clerked for Justice Peter Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada. Fay is a frequent guest teacher at law schools, invited speaker at labour/human rights conferences, and publishes extensively about labour and human rights. She co-edited the book Making Equality Rights Real addressing equality rights under the Charter which was published by Irwin Law in 2006. She is co-author of the book Enforcing Human Rights in Ontario, addressing human rights under the provincial Human Rights Code, which was published by Canada Law Book in 2009.
Cheryl Milne, Executive Director, David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, is a leading member of the constitutional law bar in Ontario. She is currently Chair of the Ontario Bar Association's Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section. Cheryl brings extensive and sophisticated constitutional litigation experience to the Centre. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987 and completed her M.S.W. at the University of Toronto in 1991. Since 1991, she has practised law at Justice for Children and Youth. In this capacity, Cheryl has appeared at all levels of court including the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as various administrative tribunals and the clinic itself in interventions and applications.
Cheryl has been involved in many significant Charter cases involving the rights of young people under the age of 18. She was counsel for the clinic in its constitutional challenge to section 43 of the Criminal Code (the "spanking case"), and recently in the D.B. case involving the constitutionality of the adult sentencing provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Cheryl is vice-chair of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, and is currently working with members of our Faculty on a major conference on the notion of the best interests of the child. Cheryl is also a devoted and experienced teacher. She currently teaches Social Work and the Law in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University, and had been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto.
Bruce Ryder is Assistant Dean and Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University where he has taught since 1987 after clerking for Justice Gerald Le Dain of the Supreme Court of Canada (1984-85), and after receiving an LL.M. from Columbia University (1987) and an LL.B. from the University of Toronto (1984). His teaching and research focuses on a range of constitutional law issues from a Canadian and comparative perspective, including federalism, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and equality rights. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (1997-2000), Director of the Centre for Public Law and Public Policy (2004-2007), and Treasurer of the Canadian Law and Society Association (1999-2008). He has taught courses in Public Law, Constitutional Law, Canadian Federalism, Torts, Sexuality and the Law, Equality Rights, and Freedom of Expression. He is co-director of Osgoode’s Part-time LLM Program in Constitutional Law, co-chair of Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference and co-editor of the annual volume of the Supreme Court Law Review dedicated to the conference papers. His current research projects include an empirical study of judicial decision-making in constitutional equality rights cases, “The Twilight of Charter Equality Rights” (with Alysha Shore); the preparation of an edited collection of papers from the international conference “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” held at York University in June 2009, to which he is contributing an article on “Justice Ivan Rand, UNSCOP and Federal Proposals in Israel/Palestine”; and he is part of a major collaborative research initiative on religious diversity in Canada led by Lori Beaman of the University of Ottawa. He worked closely with the Law Commission of Canada on the preparation of their report Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Adult Relationships (2001). Other publications include “The Canadian Conception of Equal Religious Citizenship” in Richard Moon ed., Law and Religious Pluralism in Canada (UBC Press, 2008); “The End of Umpire? Federalism and Judicial Restraint”, (2006) 34 S.C.L.R. (2d); “State Neutrality and Freedom of Conscience and Religion”, (2005) 29 S.C.L.R. (2d) 169; “What Is Law Good For? An Empirical Review of Equality Rights Decisions”, (2004) 24 S.C.L.R. (2d) 103.
Disability Speed Dating
- Keynote Speaker: David Lepofsky
David Lepofsky graduated from Osgoode Hall in 1979. He obtained a Masters of Law from Harvard in 1982. Since his admission to the Ontario Bar in 1981, he has practiced within the Ontario Public Service in the areas of constitutional, civil, administrative, and criminal law. Since 1991, he has served as a part time member of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
Since the late 1970s, he has been active in a volunteer capacity, advocating for new laws to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in Canada. In 1980, he appeared before the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Constitution of Canada, on behalf of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind for an amendment to the proposed Charter of Rights, to guarantee equality rights to persons with disabilities. The efforts of a great many combined to lead Parliament to pass the disability amendment to the Charter.
From 1980 to 1982, he was on the leadership team of a broad disability coalition that successfully advocated for inclusion of protection against discrimination based on disability in the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Starting in 1994, he campaigned to get the Toronto Transit Commission to announce all subway stops, and later all bus stops, for the benefit of passengers with vision loss. Between 2001 and 2007 he successfully fought two cases against the TTC.
From 1994 to 2005, he led the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee. That coalition successfully campaigned for ten years to win passage of two new Ontario laws to make Ontario fully accessible to persons with disabilities, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2001 and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2005. Since then, he has helped in efforts to get that law effectively implemented.
As of late February 2009, David became the chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA Alliance: www.aodaalliance.org). The AODA Alliance is a non-partisan province-wide volunteer community coalition. It advocates for a barrier-free Ontario for all persons with disabilities. The AODA Alliance is currently campaigning for effective accessibility standard development and implementation, reform to human rights enforcement, and electoral accessibility.
- Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE)
The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) is a community legal clinic that provides legal services to low income seniors in Ontario. It has been in operation since 1984. Staffed by 5 lawyers and three support staff, ACE provides a range of legal services including client advice and representation, public legal education programmes, law reform activities and community development work. Funded by Legal Aid Ontario, ACE is managed by a community Board of Directors, 7 of whom must be over the age of 55, and is staffed by 5 lawyers and three support staff.
Judith Wahl – Executive Director, Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (www.acelaw.ca) since 1984; L.L.B. Osgoode Hall Law School, 1977; Called to the Bar in Ontario, 1979; in private practice 1979-1984; Chair, Advisory Committee for the Implementation of the Substitute Decisions Act 1992 – 1995; Member, Fact Finding Working Group on Prevention and Awareness of the Abuse of Older Adults with Disabilities, HRSDC, 2009 – to date; Member - Mental Health Law Committee, 2000 to date; Recipient of OBA Distinguished Service Award; Vice Chair, National Initiative for the Care of the Elderly Network, 2006 to date Chair, Canadian Bar Association - National Elderlaw Section, 2007-9
- ARCH Disability Law Centre
ARCH Disability Law Centre is a specialty community legal aid clinic dedicated to defending and advancing the equality rights of people with disabilities in Ontario. ARCH provides legal services to help Ontarians with disabilities live with dignity and participate fully in our communities. We work with Ontarians with disabilities and the disability community on law reform and policy initiatives, community development, legal advice and referrals, public legal education and litigation.
Tess Sheldon is a lawyer at ARCH Disability Law Centre, responsible for the clinic's research on access to administrative justice for persons with disabilities. She has worked with ARCH Disability Law Centre in a variety of roles since 2003.
|
Speaker Bios 
