Speakers included:

Marian MacGregor, Executive Director, CLASP, Osgoode Hall Law School
Dean Lorne Sossin, Osgoode Hall Law School
Doug Ferguson, Director, Community Legal Services, University of Western Ontario
James Moliterno, Vincent Bradford Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Lexington, VA
Kim Brooks, Dean, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University
André Bacchus, Director of Professional Development, Heenan Blaikie LLP
Steve Perks, University of Victoria
Hope Buset, University of Manitoba
Alyssa Manning, Parkdale Community Legal Services
Claire McNeil, Dalhousie University
Donna Franey, Dalhousie University
Laura Pinto, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education
Annie Rochette, University of Quebec at Montreal
Nathalie DesRosiers, General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association and former Dean of Law, University of Ottawa
Marian McGregor, Osgoode Hall Law School
Sarah Buhler, University of Saskatchewan
Kristin Marshall, University of Toronto
Jason Voss, University of Western Ontario
Nancy Henderson, Parkdale Community Legal Services
James Moliterno, Washington and Lee
Richard Foster, Monash Oakleigh Legal Service, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Fred Zemans, Osgoode Hall Law School
Sarah Buhler, University of Saskatchewan
Gemma Smyth, University of Windsor
Vivian Hilder, University of Manitoba
Sarah Rauch, University of British Columbia First Nations Clinic
Michele Leering, Executive Director, Community Advocacy and Legal Centre, Belleville, ON
Faisal Bhabha, Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School

Notes on the future of articling in Ontario available on Slaw.

Chairs of the event were Malcolm J. MacKillop of Shields O’Donnell MacKillop LLP and Christine M. Thomlinson of Rubin Thomlinson LLP.

Speakers included:

The Honourable Madam Justice Susan G. Himel of the Superior Court of Justice

Sharan K. Basran, Legal Counsel, Manager of Legal Services, Human Rights Legal Support Centre

Scott D. Bergman, Cooper and Sandler LLP

Lauren M. Bernardi, Bernardi Human Resource Law

Matthew L.O. Certosimo, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Richard J. Charney, C.S., Ogilvy Renault LLP

Mary Beth Currie, Bennett Jones LLP

Michael P. Fitzgibbon, Watershed LLP

Jeffrey Goodman, Heenan Blaikie LLP

M. Norman Grosman, Grosman, Grosman & Gale LLP

Michael F. Horvat, Ogilvy Renault LLP

Malcolm J. MacKillop of Shields O’Donnell MacKillop LLP

Dan Michaluk, Hicks Morley

Natasha A. V. Miklaucic, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

N. Nicole Nussbaum

Jim Patterson, Bennett Jones LLP

Michael E. Royce, Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP

Janice Rubin, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Stuart E. Rudner, Miller Thomson LLP

Jason Squire, Lerners LLP

Christine M. Thomlinson, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Elizabeth Traynor, Siskinds LLP

Michael D. Wright, Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish LLP

John Yach, Shields / Hunt

Andrea York, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP

Loreta Zubas, LLM, C.S., Zubas + Associates

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) held their 2009 annual conference at UofT.

After a welcome by Jason Leung, the FACL President and Conference Co-Chair, Professor Anita Anand of UofT Law provided some opening remarks.

A judiciary panel chaired by Justice Maryka Omatsu, and consisted of The Honourable Justice Russell Juriansz of Court of Appeal of Ontario; the Honourable Justice Shaun Nakatsuru of the Ontario Court of Justice; and the Honourable Justice Manjusha Pawagi of the Ontario Court of Justice.  They addressed the subject of, “Is Justice (Colour) Blind?”  They addressed issues raised previously on Law is Cool, such as by Bertha Wilson’s paper Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?, and the study by Yahya and Stribopoulos, Does a Judge’s Party of Appointment or Gender Matter to Case Outcomes? An Empirical

The Keynote Address was delivered by the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, on residential schools.  A summary of the talk is found on Law is Cool and Slaw.

Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

The afternoon consisted of a series of workshops on legal updates, which included Visha Sukdeo, Roslyn Tsao, Kathy Laird, Professor Poonam Puri, Carolyn Chambers, Teresa Cheung, Ron Choudhury, Jason Leung, and Dee Rajpal.

A subsequent workshop focussed on Bay Street Initiatives on Diversity, chaired by Fred Gerra , featured
Tariq Remtulla of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, May Cheng of Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP, Kate Broer of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, André Bacchus of Heenan Blaikie LLP, and Kevin O’Brien of Stikeman Elliott
LLP.

A concurrent panel, chaired by Deanna Santos, looked at the experiences of sole practitioners Jacqueline An, Ramon Andal, Peggy Chooi and Amer Mushtaq.

UWO Law hosted the 2009 Labour Law Lecture & Conference on Equity in the Workplace: 25 Years After the Abella Report.

Hon. Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada delivered the keynote speech on Oct. 30, 2009. Kamila Pizon, a 3L at UWO Law, did a write-up on the speech available from Canadian Lawyer magazine and the school website.

The conference itself was held the following day, on Oct. 31, 2009.  Brian Burkett, partner at Heenan Blaikie LLP, provided the introduction and overview.

The first panel, on the evolution of employment equity, was chaired by The Honourable Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, and featured Carol Agocs of The University of Western Ontario, David Lepofsky, Chair of Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, and Nan Weiner of NJ Weiner Consulting.

The second panel discussed policy perspectives on employment equity. It was chaired by Elizabeth MacPherson of the Canada Industrial Relations Board, and featured Patricia Hughes of the Law Commission of Ontario, Elizabeth McIsaac of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, and Tom Patch of the University of British Columbia.

Raj Anand of WeirFoulds LLP provided a keynote luncheon speech.

The third panel provided some international perspectives on employment equity. Kevin Whitaker, Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board chaired the panel that consisted of Harish Jain of McMaster University, who spoke of successes in Malaysia, India and elsewhere, Natasha Martin of the Seattle University School of Law, who covered the implications of President Obama’s election, and Michael Stein of Harvard Law School.

Raj Anand of WeirFoulds LLP chaired the fourth panel, providing legal perspectives on employment equity.  Mary Cornish of Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre Cornish LLP provided a union side perspective, while Nitya Iyer of Heenan Blaikie LLP gave a manager side overview. Michael Lynk, Associate Dean at The University of Western Ontario, also added his insight.

Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada

The Charter and human rights are increasingly re-shaping labour laws and employment relations in the Canadian workplace

Human rights and equality have become the leading legal issues in the Canadian workplace. Anti-discrimination clauses in collective agreements, human rights statutes and even the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are regularly litigated in labour and employment law cases. As our society becomes more diverse and more rights-oriented, and as our employment relationships become more transitional, workplace glass ceilings have become more visible and human rights talk has become more evident.

The workplace, in Canada and elsewhere, is not only a primary source of human rights violations but it is also one of the most obvious social institutions through which to challenge these discriminatory practices through laws and campaigns. Many of the path-breaking human rights and equality rulings in Canada over the past twenty-five years – on disability, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, older workers, and family status issues – have arisen out of the workplace. All of these human rights issues, and more, have been at the centre of developments in modern Canadian labour law and industrial relations.

The University of Western Ontario and the national law firm of Heenan Blaikie LLP are proud to co-sponsor their fifth labour law conference, with this year’s theme of The Charter and Human Rights at Work: 25 Years Later. This event brings together prominent international labour law academics, practising lawyers, chairs of Canadian labour relations boards, Canadian and international policy advisors, law students and representatives of employers, unions and government. Together, they will engage in a broad-based debate on the present and future direction of human rights and equality law in the workplace.

The conference was co-chaired by Brian Burkett, Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP and Professor Michael Lynk, Faculty of Law, UWO.  The program was as follows:

PANEL 1: The Charter and Labour Law: What Difference Has it Made?
Chaired by: The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., Chief Justice of Canada
Panelists:
Paul Cavalluzzo, Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish
Patricia Hughes, The Law Commission of Ontario
Brian Langille, University of Toronto

Canadian labour law, once thought of as the Charter’s orphan, has recently witnessed a number of trail-blazing decisions on workplace rights. In recent rulings – Dunmore, Pepsi-Cola, Advanced Cutting and Coring, and now B.C. Health Services – the Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged a place for collective rights in the Charter, and opened the door to challenging restrictions on organizing, collective bargaining and industrial disputes. But how wide-open is the door, and how solid is the foundation?

The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., Chief Justice of Canada

PANEL 2: Fundamental Rights at Work in International Law
Chaired by: Warren Edmondson, Chair, Canada Industrial Relations Board
Panelists:
Adelle Blackett, McGill University
Michael Lynk, University of Western Ontario
Lee Swepston, International Labour Organization

With the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling in B.C. Health Services giving a prominent role to international labour law, we will be looking to the legal rulings of the International Labour Organization and other global institutions for guidance in future workplace Charter challenges. What are the fundamental principles of international labour law, how might they shape litigation on the horizon, and what has Canada’s labour law record been at the ILO?

Luncheon Speaker: Mr. Hassan Yussuff, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Labour Congress

Hassan Yussuff has been the elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress, the second ranking leadership position in the Canadian labour movement, since 2002. A native of Guyana, he first became active in the labour movement as a young worker at CanCar in Toronto, before becoming a staff representative with the Canadian Auto Workers. At the CLC, Mr. Yussuff’s responsibilities include include political action, human rights, anti-racism, and immigration and refugee issues. He is also a Vice-President of ORIT, the American hemispheric organization of the International Trade Union Confederation.

Mr. Hassan Yussuff, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Labour Congress

PANEL 3: Human Rights at Work I
Chaired by: Kevin Whitaker, Chair, Ontario Labour Relations Board
Panelists:
Gillian Demeyere, University of Western Ontario
Ravi Malhotra, University of Ottawa
Andrea Zwack, Heenan Blaikie

The rapid rise of human rights to legal prominence in the Canadian workplace has witnessed prominent rulings on all of the major statutory anti-discrimination grounds. This panel will critically examine legal developments in the human rights areas of religious beliefs, race and gender at work.

PANEL 4: Human Rights at Work II
Chaired by: Mr. Hassan Yussuff, Canadian Labour Congress
Panelists:
Michael Mac Neil, Carleton University
Dianne Pothier, Dalhousie University
Larry Steinberg, Koskie Minsky

This panel continued a critical assessment of human rights developments in workplace law, including legal developments around employment discrimination over family and marital status, disability and age.

The Honourable Donald Johnston, P.C., Q.C. was the banquet speaker. A lawyer, former federal cabinet minister and international public servant, he was elected four times to the House of Commons.  He held several cabinet roles under Prime Minister Trudeau, including Minister of Justice and Attorney-General and President of the Treasury Board. In 1996, he became Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the first non-European to occupy this prestigious position. During his 10 year tenure, Mr. Johnston took the lead in establishing corporate social responsibility, sustainable development and employment conditions as integral parts of international economic policy.

Honourable Donald Johnston, P.C., Q.C.