Speakers and moderators
Lloyd Axworthy (2007 Mentor)
Chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council
Lloyd Axworthy P.C., C.C., O.M., is the chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council, an international body established to develop solutions to problems in the current refugee system.
Dr. Axworthy led Canada’s election observation mission to Ukraine in 2019.
He recently served as Board Chair of CUSO International, a Canadian-based international development agency and was on the executive committee of the International Institute of Sustainable Development. He is past member of the Boards of the MacArthur Foundation and Human Rights Watch.
From 2004 to 2014, Dr. Axworthy was the President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg. In his ten years he pioneered community learning programs for Aboriginal and low-income youth.
He served seven years as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and twenty-one years as an elected member of the Canadian Parliament, holding several Cabinet posts, including Minister of Employment and Immigration, Western Diversification and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In that position he was known for his work in advancing the Human Security agenda that included the Treaty on antipersonnel land mines, the International Criminal Court, and the Protocol on Child Soldiers.
In 1997, he was nominated by United States Senator Patrick Leahy for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on banning land mines.
In 2001, he was awarded Princeton University’s James Madison Medal for outstanding public service.
In 2002, he was awarded The Order of Canada and in 2016, he was made a Companion – the highest rank of the Order.
In 2004, he published a book, Navigating a New World. His new memoir Lloyd Axworthy: My Life In Politics was released in October, 2024.
Lloyd Axworthy holds a BA from the University of Winnipeg, and Ph.D from Princeton University. In addition, he has received sixteen honourary doctorates since leaving government
He published his memoir in October, 2024.
Isabella Bakker (2009 Fellow)
Distinguished Research Professor at York University
Isabella Bakker is a Distinguished Research Professor at York University where she was the first woman Chair of the Department of Political Science. A leading authority in the fields of political economy, public finance, gender and development, her work was recognized when she was named a Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2004. She has held visiting professorships at a number of institutions including the European University Institute, New York University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has also held consultancies with the Canadian and Ontario governments, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the United Nations as well as with numerous women’s advocacy groups dedicated to advancing economic and social justice.
Throughout her career, Dr. Bakker’s policy and advocacy work has been committed to the enhancement of democratic dialogue, equitable global social change and gender equality. She has consistently explored and developed new national and international mechanisms and processes needed to improve governance so as to promote the empowerment of women in an era of intensified globalization.
Her pioneering contributions in scholarly and advocacy work integrate public policy, economics, international studies and gender-based analysis have resulted in numerous articles and books, notably: The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy, Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada, Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy, and most recently, Beyond States and Markets: The Challenges of Social Reproduction.
Her work over the last decade and a half has involved an increasingly important sphere of research: the complex interplay between gender and (international) public policy, and in particular how macroeconomics, especially fiscal policy influences gender questions. Her continuing work rests upon an assumption supported by research carried out by United Nations agencies, that more gender-sensitive and socially equitable economic policies produce more optimal frameworks for human development. Her research agenda therefore addresses three sets of broad questions: what policies contribute to more equitable, socially just and sustainable development? What is the role of gender in the global economy, particularly given that the majority of the world’s poor are women and children? And, what is the link between macroeconomic policies, social development and gender equality?
Benjamin L. Berger
Full Professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School, Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS)
Benjamin L. Berger is Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. He is a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS), held the York Research Chair in Pluralism and Public Law, and served as Associate Dean (Students) from 2015-2018. He served as law clerk to the Rt. Honourable Beverley McLachlin, former Chief Justice of Canada and holds an LLM and JSD from Yale University, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar. His areas of research and teaching specialization are law and religion, legal and social theory, criminal and constitutional law, and the law of evidence. He has published broadly in these fields and is the author or editor of multiple books.
He is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Faculty of Graduate Studies’ Faculty Teaching Award in 2024, and, in 2015, was awarded the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Prize for Academic Excellence, in recognition of his contributions to research and law teaching. Professor Berger convenes the Osgoode Colloquium in Law, Religion & Social Thought.
Bettina B. Cenerelli
President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation
President and CEO since May 2024, Dr. Bettina B. Cenerelli’s mandate is to lead the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
She completed her studies in Germany (FU Berlin; Universität Siegen) and France (Université de Pau; École normale supérieure, Paris; Sorbonne, Paris). Dr. Cenerelli holds a doctorate in French Literature from the Universität Siegen and a First State Examination (1. Staatsexamen) in French and History from the FU Berlin.
Prior to her current mandate, Dr. Cenerelli was the Senior Director of Strategic Academic Planning and Student Affairs in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU), British Columbia.
From 2011 to 2015, she served as Associate Director at the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs at SFU, overseeing the French Cohort Program. Before her tenure at SFU, Dr. Cenerelli was Program Director at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in Montréal, QC, editor at the University of Montréal Press, and Assistant Professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick.
Stéphanie Chouinard (2021 Fellow)
Associate Professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College (Kingston) and Queen's University
Dr. Stéphanie Chouinard is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Royal Military College (Kingston) and Queen’s University. She does research in the fields of language rights, minority and Aboriginal rights, and law and politics. She teaches in Canadian politics, comparative politics, and political geography.
She was the recipient of SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier (Masters) and Vanier (Doctoral) Scholarships, as well as a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship and a fellowship from the Baxter & Alma Ricard Foundation. She is a graduate of the University of Ottawa (Ph.D., M.A.) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal, as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Canadian Studies, University of Edinburgh.
Amanda Clarke (2010 Scholar)
Associate Professor at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration
Amanda Clarke is Associate Professor at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Her research examines digital era public administration, public data governance and the political economy of digital government. She is author of Opening the Government of Canada: The Federal Bureaucracy in the Digital Age, a recipient of a Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award and included in Apolitical’s list of the Top 100 Most Influential Academics in Government. Clarke is a founding contributor and board member of the open access education non-profit Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age.
Dominique Clement
Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta, member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS)
Dominique Clément is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta and a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS). The author of seven scholarly books as well as over 90 articles, chapters, reports, and reviews published in English, French, Chinese, and Japanese. Dr. Clément’s scholarship, including websites at HistoryOfRights.ca and statefunding.ca, centres on the history and sociology of human rights, social movements, and the nonprofit sector.
Geneviève Couture
Senior Archivist with the Governance, Military and Political section at Library and Archives Canada
Geneviève Couture has been a political archivist at Library and Archives Canada since 2007. She works primarily with the private archival fonds of Canada’s prime ministers, including those of the Right Honourable Pierre E. Trudeau, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. Geneviève Couture holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the Université de Sherbrooke, as well as a master’s degree in history and a certificate in Digital information management from the Université de Montréal.
Andrew Coyne
Columnist for The Globe and Mail
Biography to come.
François Crépeau (2008 Fellow)
Full Professor of public international law at the Faculty of Law, McGill University
François Crépeau, O.C., O.Q., F.R.S.C., Dr.h.c. Clermont-Auvergne, Trudeau Fellow 2008, Ad.E., is Full Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. He was the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law from 2009 to 2022, and the Director of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism from 2015 to 2020.
Professor Crépeau was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants from 2011 to 2017. In this capacity, he has conducted official visits to Albania, Tunisia, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Malta, the European institutions in Brussels and Vienna, Angola, Australia (including the Australian detention centres in Nauru). He has also produced several thematic reports: the detention of migrants, the protection of migrants’ rights at the external borders of the European Union, climate change and migration, global migration governance, labour exploitation of migrants, labour recruitment practices, trade agreements and migration. He was the Chair of the Coordination Committee of the United Nations Human Rights Procedures (2014-2015).
Professor Crépeau was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Agency for Fundamental Rights of the European Union (FRA, Vienna, AT) (2018-2023), a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Migration Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (NY) (2017-2021), the Chair of the Thematic Working Group: Migrant Rights and Integrations in Host Communities, KNOMAD – Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, World Bank Group (Washington, DC), and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Bureau for Children’s Rights (Montreal) (2018-2021).
He was guest professor at Université catholique de Louvain (yearly, 2010-2020). He was the 2017-2018 International Francqui Professor Chair at Université catholique de Louvain, in collaboration with six other Belgian universities (Université de Liège, Antwerp University, Université libre de Bruxelles, Université Saint-Louis, Ghent University, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). He was the 2016-2017 Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Visiting Professor of Human Rights Chair at Georgetown University (Washington, DC). He has also been guest professor at the following institutions : Centre de recherches sur les droits de l’homme, Université de Paris Panthéon-Assas (2018), Institut international des droits de l’homme (Strasbourg) (2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2015) ; Graduate Institute for International Studies (IUHEI-Genève, 2007), Institut des hautes études internationales, Université de Paris II (2002), Université d’Auvergne-Clermont 1 (1997).
Professor Crépeau is an Officer of the Order of Canada (2017), an Officer of the Order of Quebec (2022), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2012), a Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (2008-2011), a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Université de Clermont-Auvergne (France, 2018), and an Advocatus Emeritus (Ad.E.) of the Quebec Bar Association (2013).
From 2001 to 2008, Professor Crépeau was a professor at Université de Montréal, holder of the Canada Research Chair in International Migration Law (2004-2008) and founding director of the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM). From 1990 to 2001, he was a professor at Université du Québec à Montréal.
Until 2011, Professor Crépeau also sat on the Quebec Law Society’s Committee on Human Rights and Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, was the “Justice, Police and Security” domain coordinator for the Quebec Metropolis Centre, and was a member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He served as vice-president of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (now Equitas) (1992-2004) and director of the Revue québécoise de droit international (1996-2004). He participated in observer missions in the occupied Palestinian territories (2002) and in El Salvador (1991).
Professor Crépeau holds degrees from McGill University (BCL and LLB), Bordeaux University (DEUG and Licence in law, Master’s in private law), Paris II University (DEA in legal sociology) and Paris I University (DEA in Business Law and Ph.D. in law).
Erin delaney
Leverhulme Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law and the Inaugural Director of the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at University College London
Erin Delaney is the Leverhulme Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law and the Inaugural Director of the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at University College London. She also serves as the Secretary General of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S). In addition to various academic editorships, she is also an elected Member of the American Law Institute and an Advisory Board Member of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law. She retains an affiliation with Northwestern University where she was Professor of Law at the Pritzker School of Law and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at the Weinberg College of Arts and Letters.
Her scholarship explores constitutionalism in comparative perspective, with a focus on federalism and judicial design in federal systems. With a background in both political science and law, she integrates a functionalist socio-political view into the more formalist frameworks presented in legal discourse. Professor Delaney was the 2022 Federal Scholar in Residence at Eurac Research’s Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano, Italy, and held the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism at McGill University. She has also held research fellowships at Edinburgh University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Prior to her position at Northwestern, she served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter and to Second Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the NYU Law Review. She earned an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Cambridge; her doctoral dissertation was awarded the Walter Bagehot Prize from the U.K. Political Studies Association. She has an A.B. in Government, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
The Honorable MARIE DESCHAMPS (2015 Mentor)
Professor at the law schools of the Université de Sherbrooke
The Honourable Marie Deschamps received a Licentiate in Laws from the Université de Montréal in 1974 and an LL.M. from McGill University in 1983. She has been an adjunct professor at the School of Law, Université de Sherbrooke since 2006 and of McGill University since 2012.
The Royal Military College of Canada, the Université de Montréal and the Université de Sherbrooke awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2021, 2008 and 2014, respectively. She received the F. R. Scott Award for Distinguished Service from the Faculty of Law at McGill University in 2013.
She was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 2013 and received the distinction Lawyer Emeritus from the Quebec Bar in 2014.
Madame Deschamps was called to the Quebec Bar in 1975 and practiced as a litigator at Martineau Walker and Sylvestre et Matte in family, civil and commercial law; then at Rouleau, Rumanek and Sirois in criminal law; and finally at Byers Casgrain in civil and commercial law. She was appointed judge to the Quebec Superior Court in 1990, to the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1992, and to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2002. She retired from the judiciary in August 2012 and rejoined the Quebec Bar in 2013.
In 2014, Madame Deschamps was appointed to conduct the External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces. In 2015, she was named Chair of the panel for an External Independent Review of the United Nations Response to Allegations of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the Central African Republic. In 2016, she served as member of the review committee on Quebec provincial judges remuneration. In 2017, she was appointed Chair of the Council of Canadian Academies’ Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying. In 2018, she was designated as Assessor for the LGBT Purge Class Action settlement and in 2020 as Chair of the Exceptions Committee for the Indian Day School Class Action Settlement. She was appointed a member of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency in 2019 and Chair in 2021. She was also appointed Jurisconsult of the Quebec National Assembly in 2023.
Madame Deschamps served as member of the Boards of Directors of Educaloi from 2013 to 2019 and of Energir from 2014 to 2019, and acts as Trustee of Pro Bono Canada since 2013.
Karen Drake
Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University
Karen Drake is a member of the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. She researches and teaches in the areas of Canadian law as it affects Indigenous peoples, Anishinaabe constitutionalism, Indigenous pedagogy within legal education, and dispute resolution including civil procedure and Indigenous dispute resolution. Previously, she articled with Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, completed a clerkship with the Ontario Court of Appeal, served as a part-time judicial law clerk with the Federal Court, practised with JFK Law as counsel, and served as Osgoode’s Associate Dean (Students) throughout the pandemic, from July 2020 to June 2023
Natasha Dubois
Senior Archivist with the Government Archives Division at Library and Archives Canada
Natasha Dubois has been an archivist at Library and Archives Canada since 2018. She works primarily with the government archival holdings of the Department of Industry and its predecessors. She collaborates with various government institutions to support them in their application of the Library and Archives of Canada Act, including the Department of Industry, the Department of Infrastructure and several Crown corporations. Prior to joining Library and Archives Canada, she taught Canadian history and geography for 12 years in various Quebec high schools. Natasha Dubois holds a bachelor’s degree in
Education – Secondary Social Sciences from Université du Québec à Montréal and a Master’s degree in Information Science from Université de Montréal.
LOUISE FRÉCHETTE
Former Canadian diplomat, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations
Louise Fréchette served as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1998 to 2006. Before taking up her duties at the UN, she held a number of posts in the Canadian public service, including as Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay (1985–1988), Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (1992–1994), Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance (1995) and Deputy Minister of National Defence (1995–1998).
Since leaving the United Nations, Ms. Fréchette has worked for several public and private organizations. She joined the Board of Directors of CARE Canada, a charitable organization, in 2008 and served as its President from 2012 to 2015. She subsequently chaired the Board of CARE International from 2016 to 2019. She was also a member of Essilor International’s Board of Directors from 2013 to 2020 and chaired its Social Responsibility Committee. She is a member of the Global Leadership Foundation and sits on its Board of Directors.
Ms. Fréchette holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Université de Montréal and a diploma in Economics from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian and foreign universities and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Jamal Greene
Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School
Jamal Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, the law of the political process, and comparative constitutional law. He is the author of How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart, as well as numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on constitutional law and theory. From January 2023 to December 2024, he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel. He served as a law clerk to the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to the Hon. John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and his A.B. from Harvard College.
Ran Hirschl
David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor in Law and Politics of the University of Toronto
Ran Hirschl is University Professor and the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor in Lawand Politics at the University of Toronto. Professor Hirschl is the author of numerous books, articles and book chapters on Canadian and comparative constitutional law and constitutional politics. Four of his books won a major book award: City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity (Oxford University Press, 2020) — recipient of the 2021 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research, awarded by the International Science Council (ISC) and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR);
Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2014) – winner of the 2015 American Political Science Association (APSA) Herman Pritchett Award for the best book on law and courts; Constitutional Theocracy (Harvard University Press, 2010) – winner of the 2011 Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory; and Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (Harvard University Press, 2004) – winner of the 2021 Lasting Contribution Award from the American Political Science Association’s Law & Courts Section. His forthcoming books include Olympic Citizenship: The Interface of Nationality, Sports, and Transnational Law (co-authored with Ayelet Shachar, Oxford University Press, 2026) and Constitutionalism 2050: Planetary Challenges, Statist Thinking (Cambridge University Press,2026).
Professor Hirschl has won academic excellence awards in five different countries, and has attracted over $7.5 million in competitive research grants, including a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development, Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council of the Arts, and a coveted Alexander von Humboldt International Research Award—themost highly-endowed research award in Germany. He is the recipient of a University of Toronto teaching award and the APSA & Pi Sigma Alpha certificate for outstanding teaching in political science. He served as co-president of the International Society of Public Law, and held distinguished visiting professorships at Harvard, NYU, and NUS, as well as prestigious fellowships at Stanford University, Princeton University, and with the Max Planck Society. He also served as Professor of Government and the Earl E. Sheffield Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Hirschl is the co-editor of Cambridge University Press book series on comparative constitutional law and policy. He delivered dozens of keynote lectures in conferences and universities worldwide. His work has been translated into various languages (from French, Dutch and Spanish to Turkish, Hebrew and Mandarin), discussed in numerous scholarly fora, cited by jurists and in high court decisions worldwide, and addressed in leading media venues from the CBC, New York Times and Folha de São Paulo to Le Figaro, Deutsche Welle, and the Jerusalem Post. As of 2014, he is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). The official citation describes him as “one of the world’s leading scholars of comparative constitutional law, courts and jurisprudence.”
Aziz Huq
Frank and Bernice J. Professor at the University of Chicago Law School
Aziz Huq is the Frank and Bernice J. Professor at the University of Chicago Law School and associate professor in the sociology department. His books include How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (2018) (with Tom Ginsburg), The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies (2021), and The Rule of Law: A Very Short Introduction (2024).
His work has also been published in the Harvard Law Review, Daedalus, and many other scholarly venues. Before teaching, he represented civil liberties claimants with the Brennan Center for Justice, and worked for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. He was also a law clerk first for Judge Robert D. Sack of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Hoi Kong (2024 Fellow)
The Inaugural holder of The Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, P.C., UBC Professorship in Constitutional Law, University of British Columbia
Professor Hoi Kong is the Inaugural Holder of The Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, P.C., UBC Professorship in Constitutional Law, which he assumed in 2018. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Program on Constitutional Studies and a Peter Wall Scholar (2020-2021). He researches and teaches in the areas of constitutional, administrative, municipal and comparative law, and constitutional and public law theory.
Prior to joining the Allard School of Law, Professor Kong was an Assistant and then Associate Professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, where he served a term as Associate Dean (Academic). He was previously an Assistant Professor of Law, cross-appointed with the School of Urban Planning at Queen’s University, and an Associate-in-Law at the Columbia Law School. Professor Kong clerked for Justice L’Heureux-Dubé and Justice Deschamps at the Supreme Court of Canada. Over the years, Professor Kong has received a number of accolades for his teaching. These include the Queen’s University Law Students’ Society Teaching Excellence Award; the John W. Durnford Award for Teaching Excellence, awarded by McGill’s Law Students’ Association; and McGill University’s Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In 2017, he received the Canadian Association of Law Teachers’ Academic Excellence Award, for outstanding contributions to teaching and research in law. Professor Kong co-directs with Professor Ron Levy (Australian National University) the Project on Deliberative Governance and Law. He also directs a research axis at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal and is on the editorial boards of the Review of Constitutional Studies and American Journal of Comparative Law, as well as the international board of distinguished advisors for the Federal Law Review. In 2020, his article Trudeau, Patriation and Constitutional Theory, was included in the publication: The Political and Constitutional Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Current research interests also include urban sustainable development law.
VALÉRIE LAPOINTE GAGNON
Associate Professor of History at the University of Alberta's Faculté Saint-Jean, Director of the Marcelle and Louis Desrochers Institute for Heritage Studies and Transdisciplinary Research on Francophonies (IMELDA)
Valérie Lapointe Gagnon is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Alberta’s Faculté Saint-Jean and Director of the Marcelle and Louis Desrochers Institute for Heritage Studies and Transdisciplinary Research on Francophonies (IMELDA). Her research interests include the intellectual and political history of contemporary Canada and Quebec, women’s history, Canadian francophonies, constitutional issues and Canada-Quebec relations.
In 2018, she published the essay Panser le Canada : une histoire intellectuelle de la Commission Laurendeau-Dunton (Boréal), which won her the “Prix de la présidence de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec” award. Since 2024, she has been a member of the Canadian government’s external advisory group on the creation and dissemination of scientific information in French.
Michelle Lawrence (2010 Scholar)
Associate Professor with the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, and Director of the Access to Justice Centre for Excellence
Michelle is an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria and Director of the Access to Justice Centre for Excellence. Her teaching and research focus on criminal law and evidence, with special attention to cases at the intersection of law and mental health. She currently holds appointments as Alternate Chair of the BC Review Board, Senior Associate at the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform, and Associate Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies. She previously practiced law as a partner at a national law firm. Michelle has graduate degrees in law and criminology, including an LLM from the University of Cambridge and PhD from Simon Fraser University.
Kathleen Mahoney (2008 Fellow)
Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Calgary and King’s Counsel
Professor Kathleen E. Mahoney has a JD from the University of British Columbia, an LLM degree from Cambridge University, a Diploma in International Comparative Human Rights from the Strasbourg International Human Rights Institute in France, and an Honorary Doctorate from University Canada West in Vancouver. She is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Calgary and King’s Counsel. She has held Visiting Professorships or Fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Adelaide University, University of Western Australia, Griffiths University, the National University of Australia and Ulster University in Ireland.
She was the Chief Negotiator for Canada’s Indigenous peoples claim against Canada and major religious denominations for the Indian Residential School policy and the abuse inflicted on students, achieving the largest Indigenous settlement in Canadian history for the mass human rights violations. She was the primary architect of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and led the negotiations for the historic apology from the Canadian Parliament and from Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
Kathleen has been blanketed three times by the British Columbia Chiefs, University of Saskatchewan, Vice-Provost Indigenous Engagement, and Treaty 3 First Nation. She received her Indigenous name from esteemed Elder Fred Kelly from Treaty 3 First Nation.
She was co-counsel for Bosnia Herzegovina in their genocide action against Serbia in the International Court of Justice with the result that the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention was altered to include mass rapes and forced pregnancy as genocide offences.
Professor Mahoney is a Trudeau Fellow, and a Fulbright and Human Rights Fellow (Harvard), a Sir Allan Sewell Fellow, a Senior Fellow and Canadian Co-Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Human Rights Centre. She received the Governor General’s medal for her contribution to equality in Canada. In 2022 Professor Mahoney received the inaugural Ontario Women in Law Leadership Rosalie Silberman Abella Award. She was awarded Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal twice – one from the province of Alberta and the other from province of Manitoba. Since 2008 she has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the nation’s highest academic honour.
Sean Mills (2024 Fellow)
Professor at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Canadian and Transnational History
Sean Mills is professor and Canada Research Chair in Canadian and Transnational History. He came to the University of Toronto after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University, and his research has addressed questions of migration, race, culture, political thought, gender, and empire. His first book, The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal (2010), was awarded the Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Award, and earned an Honourable Mention for the Canadian Historical Association’s Sir John A. Macdonald Award/Governor General’s Award for Scholarly Achievement.
The dissertation from which it was derived won the John Bullen Award for the best history Ph.D. thesis in Canada, the Eugene Forsey Thesis Prize, and the Governor General’s Gold Medal. The book is now in its 4th printing, was reviewed in over 30 popular and academic publications, and was widely adopted for courses in a variety of disciplines. In 2011, the book was published in French translation as Contester l’empire. Pensée postcoloniale et militantisme politique à Montréal, 1963-1972.
Val Napoleon
Professor for the Faculty of Law and the Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance at the University of Victoria
Val Napoleon [LLB, PhD, IPC] is a Professor for the Faculty of Law and the Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance at the University of Victoria [and former dean]. She is the co-founder of Juris Doctor and Juris Indigenarum Doctor (dual law degree program in Indigenous and Canadian law), the founding director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit, and the co-founder of the National Centre for Indigenous Laws (provisional name).
She is Cree from Saulteau First Nation and an she is adopted into Gitanyow [Gitxsan]. She researches Indigenous legal traditions and methodologies (e.g., land, water, governance and democracy, gendered violence, human rights, and families), Indigenous legal theories, Indigenous feminisms, legal pluralism, Indigenous democracies and civil societies, and Indigenous intellectual property. She teaches common law property and Gitxsan land and property. Dr. Napoleon lectures and works internationally, and she is currently leading a national initiative to holistically rebuild Indigenous legal orders in Canada.
Read her publications here:
- Comparative Perspectives: Engaging Productively Across Legal Orders (2024)
- The Making and Re-Making of Public Law (2025)
Photo credits: Greg Miller
Keith Neuman
Senior Associate at the Environics Institute
Keith Neuman, Ph.D. served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Environics Institute from November 2011 to May 2019. He is now a Senior Associate at the Institute, based in Ottawa.
Much of Keith’s career has involved senior roles with leading survey research companies in Canada, including Environics Research, Decima Research, and Corporate Research Associates. Over this period, he has conducted a wide range of public opinion and social research projects for public, private and non-profit sector clients in such areas as environment and climate change, natural resources, health care, justice, social policy, and Indigenous issues.
Keith holds a Ph.D. in Social Ecology from the University of California, and in 2019 was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Research and Insights Council (CRIC), from which he also holds the credential of Certified Analytics and Insights Professional (CAIP). He is a frequent media commentator on social trends and public opinion.
Andrew Parkin
Executive Director of the Environics Institute
Andrew Parkin is the Executive Director of the Environics Institute. His career has been driven by a commitment to bringing diverse interests together, mobilizing evidence to inform decision-making and deliberation, and bridging the gap between policy research and public dialogue.
Andrew has previously held a variety of senior positions including Director of the Mowat Centre, Director General of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC), Associate Executive Director and Director of Research and Program Development at the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, and Co-Director of the Centre for Research and Information on Canada.
A political sociologist by background, he completed his post-doctorate at Dalhousie University, his Ph.D. at the University of Bradford (U.K.), and his B.A. (Honours) at Queen’s University. He has received several academic honours, including a Commonwealth Scholarship and a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications on Canadian public policy, and is a frequent commentator in both English- and French-language media.
The Honourable Malcolm Rowe
Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada since October 2016. Newfoundland & Labrador Court of Appeal 2001-16. Supreme Court of Newfoundland & Labrador, Trial Division 1999-2001. Board of Directors Canadian Superior Court Judges’ Association 2005-2015. Chair of the Advisory Committee for Federal Judicial Appointments (Newfoundland & Labrador) 2006-12. Clerk of the Executive Council & Secretary to Cabinet, Government of Newfoundland & Labrador 1996-99. Associate, then partner with Gowling & Henderson in Ottawa 1984-1996. Queens Counsel 1992.
Taught public & constitutional law (part-time) University of Ottawa Law School (1991-93). Chair of the Canadian Bar Association International Law Section (1994-95). Foreign Service Officer, Department of External Affairs 1980-1984: the Legal Bureau (Ottawa), the United Nations (New York) and Havana. Clerk Assistant to the Newfoundland legislature 1979-80. Called to the Newfoundland Bar 1978. Osgoode Hall Law School 1975-78. Memorial University of Newfoundland 1970-75: B.Sc., B.A.
Douglas Sanderson
Fulbright Scholar and the Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) is Beaver Clan, from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. He is a Fulbright Scholar and holds the Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. Professor Sanderson has served as senior Advisor to the government of Ontario, in the offices of the Attorney General and Aboriginal Affairs. He is co-author of the national bestselling non-fiction history of Canada, Valley of the Birdtail.
Marion Sandilands
Partner, Conway Litigation and Part-time Professor, University of Ottawa
Marion Sandilands is a lawyer, legal scholar, adjudicator, and active member of civil society. As a lawyer, she practices civil litigation, constitutional and administrative law at Conway Litigation in Ottawa. She has appeared before multiple courts in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nunavut, including the Supreme Court of Canada. After her call to the bar, she served as a law clerk to the Hon. Yves De Montigny (now Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Appeal) and the Hon. Andromache Karakatsanis at the Supreme Court of Canada. As a legal scholar, she teaches Constitutional Law at the University of Ottawa. She speaks and has published on matters of constitutional, public, and administrative law.
As an adjudicator, she is a member of the Nunavut Human Rights Tribunal. As an active member of civil society, she is a Senior Fellow, Constitutional Law at the think tank Section 1. She serves on the board of directors of the International Commission of Jurists (Canada). She has provided expert comments on constitutional issues for the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto, the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the University of Alberta, and for the Toronto Star and Global News.
Prior to her career in law, Marion worked in the field of international development where she helped manage overseas projects ranging from rural livelihoods to economic research. This work took her to Kenya, Vietnam, Senegal, and Mexico.
Malcolm Thorburn (2024 Fellow)
Professor of Law and Chair of the Legal, Ethical and Cultural Implications of Technological Innovation at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Prior to joining the Faculty of Law in 2013, Malcolm Thorburn was Canada Research Chair in Crime, Security and Constitutionalism at Queen’s University. In 2000-2001, he served as Law Clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada for Mr. Justice Louis LeBel. He has held visiting fellowships at Sciences Po, Paris, France (2019), the Australian National University (2008), Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany (2011), and the French National Centre for Criminology (CESDIP) in Paris, France (2011).
In the 2011-2012 academic year, he was the Robert S. Campbell visiting fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, UK. His writing focuses on theoretical issues in criminal justice and public law including criminal law and procedure, sentencing, policing, constitutional rights and proportionality reasoning. He is the editor of two books: The Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law (with David Dyzenhaus) and The Dignity of Law (with Dwight Newman). His work has appeared in such publications as the Yale Law Journal, Ratio Juris, the Boston University Law Review, the University of Toronto Law Journal, Criminal Law and Philosophy and several books at Oxford University Press and Hart Publishing. He is co-convenor of the Legal Theory Workshop, an associate editor of the New Criminal Law Review and a member of the editorial boards of Law and Philosophy and Criminal Law and Philosophy.
Daniel Turp
Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal
Along with a law degree from the Université de Sherbrooke, Daniel Turp holds a Master of Laws degree from the Université de Montréal, a diploma in international law from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate (summa cum laude) from the Université de droit, d’économie et de sciences sociales de Paris (Paris II). He was also the first Quebecer to receive the prestigious diploma from the Hague Academy of International Law. Mr. Turp taught at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law from 1980 to 2020 and now holds the rank of Professor Emeritus. He has been a visiting professor at several Quebec, Canadian and European universities as well as the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg and Hague Academy of International Law. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School.
Mr. Turp is President of the Association québécoise de droit constitutionnel (AQDC), Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Société québécoise de droit international (SQDI) and a member of the advisory board of the Réseau francophone de droit international (RFDI). He is also a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques of the Institut de France.
Daniel Turp was a member of the Canadian House of Commons between 1997 and 2000, representing the Bloc Québécois. He was also elected to the Quebec National Assembly, serving as a Parti Québécois MNA between 2003 and 2008. He is President of the Institut de recherche sur l’autodétermination des peuples et l’indépendance nationale (IRAI) and of Droits collectifs Québec (DCQ). A campaigner for peace, human rights and environmental protection, he has initiated several strategic litigation initiatives, most notably concerning Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and an end to Canada’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
Stéfanie von Hlatky (2024 Fellow)
Canada Research Chair in Gender, Security and the Armed Forces, Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Fellow with the Centre for International and Defence Policy
Stéfanie von Hlatky is the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Security and the Armed Forces, Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, and Fellow with the Centre for International and Defence Policy. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Université de Montréal (2010), where she was Executive Director for the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. She’s held positions at Georgetown University, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Dartmouth College, ETH Zurich and was a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the University of Southern California’s Centre for Public Diplomacy in 2016. Stéfanie von Hlatky is the founder of Women in International Security-Canada, and the Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel at the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment.
Grégoire Webber (2004 Scholar)
Professor of Law and Philosophy at Queen’s University
Grégoire Webber, M.S.M., is Professor of Law and Philosophy at Queen’s University. His research is in the areas of human rights, public law, and philosophy of law.
He is a graduate of McGill University with bachelors of civil law and common law and of the University of Oxford with a doctorate in law, where he studied as a Trudeau scholar.
He clerked for Justice Ian Binnie of the Supreme Court of Canada and, as a student, for Justice André Rochon of the Quebec Court of Appeal.
Grégoire previously worked as a senior policy advisor with the Privy Council Office and as Legal Affairs Advisor to the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, P.C., Attorney General of Canada and Minister of Justice. He currently serves as legal agent of the Department of Justice (Canada), providing legal advice on key files.
He is joint founder and Executive Director of the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute, which provides free advocacy advice to counsel appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. In relation to his role in co-founding the Institute, he was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal by the Governor General of Canada for improving “access to justice for all Canadians”.
Alison L. Young
Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge and Law Commissioner for Public Law and the Law in Wales
Alison Young is the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge and the Law Commissioner for Public Law and the Law in Wales. She has also acted as a legal advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. Prior to her move to Cambridge, she was a professor of public law at the University of Oxford.
Her academic work focuses on constitutional theory, particularly looking at how constitutions protect human rights, as well as general issues of public law. Her most recent book, Unchecked Power? was aimed at a wider audience, analysing constitutional change in the UK post-Brexit and assessing how far these changes demonstrated a move towards populism in the UK.
alumni talks
Mike Ananny (2006 Scholar)
Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism and Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts, at the University of Southern California
Mike Ananny is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism and, by courtesy, an Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts, at the University of Southern California. He studies how people build the digital news infrastructures, algorithmic systems, and artificial intelligence that create public life – and he tries to intervene to make these cultures and systems better serve public interests.
He co-directs the interdisciplinary USC collective Media As SocioTechnical Systems (MASTS) and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the USC Center on Generative AI and Society, and is an Affiliated Faculty of Science, Technology, and Public Life at USC.
He is the author of Networked Press Freedom (MIT Press), co-editor (with Laura Forlano and Molly Wright Steenson) of Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press), and publishes in various interdisciplinary venues including Journalism Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Critical Internet Studies. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Microsoft Research, and holds a PhD from Stanford University and a Masters from the MIT Media Laboratory. He has written for popular press outlets including The Atlantic, WIRED, Harvard’s Nieman Lab, the Columbia Journalism Review, and the National Academy of Sciences.
See https://www.ananny.org/ for more.
Julia Christensen (2008 Scholar)
Associate Professor in Geography and Planning at Queen's University
Julia Christensen was born and raised in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (Denendeh), on Chief Drygeese territory. She has published extensively on northern and Indigenous housing, including Indigenous self-determination of housing, home as sovereignty, and the role of colonial housing policy in framing the contemporary northern housing crisis. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Northern Governance and Public Policy and is currently the Project Director for At Home in the North (athomeinthenorth.org), a CMHC- and SSHRC-funded Partnership that brings together researchers and Indigenous and northern community-based organizations and governments to collaboratively address northern housing needs. Julia is currently an Associate Professor in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University, where she is privileged to raise her son on the beautiful homelands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe on Dish with One Spoon Territory. She was a 2008 Trudeau Foundation Scholar.
Tamil Kendall (2009 Scholar)
Director of the Partnership for Women’s Health Research Canada
Tamil Kendall (she/her) has more than twenty-five years’ experience working as a community-based and academic health researcher and policymaker focused on public health and human rights. She has worked with governments, the United Nations, universities, and local and international non-profit organizations. Tamil has a keen interest in how knowledge generation intersects with community mobilization and decision-making. She has led and supported community-based research that uses administrative data to monitor policy implementation, as well as a regional initiative that documented reproductive rights violations among women living with HIV as the foundation for public interest litigation in Latin America.
Dr. Kendall is the Director of the Partnership for Women’s Health Research Canada (www.pwhr.org), an alliance of Canada’s leading women’s health research institutes. She is also an adjunct professor at the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, and a Research Associate with the BC Access to Justice Centre of Excellence (ACE), located at the University of Victoria. She holds a Master’s degree in Communication from Simon Fraser University and a doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (Anthropology and Health Sciences) from the University of British Columbia. She completed her post-doctoral research fellowship (2013-2015) with the Women and Health Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health where she was also a Takemi Fellow in International Health.
The Honourable Robert Leckey (2003 Scholar)
Judge of the Superior Court of Quebec
Robert Leckey has been a judge of the Superior Court of Québec since January 2025. An expert in constitutional law and family law, he was a Professor in McGill University’s Faculty of Law from 2006, and its Dean from 2016, until his appointment to the bench. He is a former law clerk to the Hon. Michel Bastarache of the Supreme Court of Canada and a former Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, and was a member of the Law Society of Ontario and the Barreau du Québec, which awarded him the honorary distinction of Advocatus Emeritus in 2021. Justice Leckey is the author of numerous scholarly papers and Bills of Rights in the Common Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015), as well as the editor of the collections After Legal Equality: Family, Sex, Kinship (Routledge, 2015) and Marital Rights (Routledge, 2017). Justice Leckey has served as Chair of Egale Canada’s Legal Issues Committee and President of the Council of Canadian Law Deans. He has also played an active role in the continuing education of lawyers and judges.
Mélanie Millette (2011 Scholar)
Full Professor in the Department of Social and Public Communication of UQAM
Mélanie Millette, PhD, is a full professor in UQAM’s Department of Social and Public Communication and a regular member of the Laboratoire sur la communication et le numérique (LabCMO, operating out of UQAM and Université Laval), where she has headed the organization’s practices and methods research program since 2016. She is also a member of the Chaire-réseau Jeunesse du Québec, where she is responsible for education, citizenship and culture, as well as the Institut de recherches féministes (IREF) and the anti-feminism working group of the Réseau québécois en études féministes (RéQEF). In addition, she serves on the advisory committee of the Canada Research Chair in Media, Disabilities and (Self) Representations and hosts the podcast Interface : Nos expériences numériques.
Dr. Millette’s research focuses on the use of such social media as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, along with blogs and podcasts. Her current work addresses issues of visibility/invisibility in the public space and civic participation for women and people in minority or marginalized positions, as well as methodological challenges and opportunities for feminist research on the Internet.
More specifically, she is interested in the use of digital platforms for purposes of speaking out, achieving social recognition, asserting identity, grassroots organization, resistance and political participation. Her expertise also encompasses the ethical issues posed by research, especially in matters of methodology (data policies, big data and thick data, research with minoritized or marginalized individuals, and feminist approaches).
Among other things, Dr. Millette leads the Résistance project, which documents women’s digital communication practices in response to online anti-feminism. The project examines the various ways feminist women and non-binary people respond to different forms of online anti-feminist arguments and oppression. Dr. Millette also leads the media component of the Des pratiques aux discours sur la dé*transition research project directed by Annie Pullen Sansfaçon, seeking to understand how media discourse on ceasing and reversing gender transition is articulated. Rooted in a trans-affirmative approach that respects individuals’ right to self-designation, this innovative research shines a light on the views conveyed by the media. She was also one of the founders of the feminist collective The Fourchettes – Critical Methods in Technoculture and co-directed with Florence Millerand Le Numérique en questions, a scientific communication initiative designed for the general public. For more information on her other research projects, consult the professor’s profile in the UQAM directory, “Informations générales” [General Information] section.
Milad Parpouchi (2017 Scholar)
Lecturer and Applied Health Scientist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University
Dr. Milad Parpouchi is a lecturer and applied health scientist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.
Milad earned a doctorate in health sciences and a master’s in public health from Simon Fraser University. He teaches courses on mental health and addictions, and has conducted research investigating health and social interventions that promote recovery among people experiencing complex challenges, including substance use disorders, serious mental illness, and homelessness.
Beyond his work in public health, Milad is also a professional keyboardist and drummer.
Charlie Wall-Andrews (2020 Scholar)
Creative industries executive, composer, and faculty member at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University
Celebrated as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, Dr. Charlie Wall-Andrews is a creative industries executive, composer, and faculty member at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. She completed her PhD in Management, specializing in strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and was awarded the Gold Medal for academic and research excellence by the Ted Rogers School of Management. As a leader in the music industry, she launched transformative programs like the Creative Entrepreneur Incubator and Equity X Production Development Program, empowering artists to build sustainable careers.
She also created the Women in Music Canada Leadership Accelerator program as a way to develop the next wave of leaders in the Canadian music ecosystem. Formerly a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, she serves on the Board of Directors for the Canada Council for the Arts and is the inaugural Vice-Chair of Music Canada’s Advisory Council. Appointed a Legacy Fellow with the Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship, Dr. Wall-Andrews is also an associate composer at the Canadian Music Centre. In 2025, she received the King Charles III Coronation Medal for her contributions to Canada’s creative industries. With a unique blend of academic excellence and industry leadership, she continues to shape the future of the creative industries through research, creativity, and community engagement.
Learn more: www.charliewallandrews.com
