Symposium 2025

The Honourable Rosalie Silberman Abella

Justice Silberman Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004, the first Jewish woman appointed to Canada’s top court. Her remarkable life has been a series of firsts. Born in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany, she had a storied career before joining Canada’s top court – as a practicing lawyer, a family court judge (the first pregnant person and first refugee appointed to the judiciary in Canada), law reformer (Chair of the Ontario Law Reform Commission), labor adjudicator (Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board), law professor (McGill Faculty of Law), appeal court justice and commission of inquiry head (her 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment created the term and concept of “employment equity.”) She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1997, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2018 and in 2020, she was awarded the Knight Commander‘s Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Germany. She is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music, has judged the Giller Literary Prize, moderated a Prime Ministerial Leader’s Debate and spellbound audiences around the globe with her oratory. She has left her imprint on the Supreme Court of Canada, the law in Canada and around the world and on Canada as a nation and as a global ambassador for Canadian values and jurisprudence.

Raj Anand is a senior civil litigation, administrative and human rights lawyer and a former bencher of the Law Society of Ontario.

Raj practises in the areas of human rights, constitutional and administrative law, labour relations, civil litigation, professional negligence and discipline. He also acts as an investigator, mediator and adjudicator. Raj is the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Law Commission of Ontario. He is also a former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and he acted as a Board of Inquiry under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Police Services Act, as Co-Chair of the University of Toronto Tribunal and as counsel to a number of administrative tribunals. An elected Bencher from 2007 to 2019, he continues his work as a member of the Law Society Tribunal’s Hearing and Appeal Divisions. Raj currently serves as an Adjudicator on the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal  and in 2021 he was appointed to the Discipline Committee of the College of Patent Agents & Trademark Agents.

Raj has spoken and written on diverse subjects includng trial, appellate and administrative advocacy and human rights. He graduated with the Dean’s Key in 1978 from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He served in 1986-1987 as a Task Force to the Ontario Government on the Law Concerning Trespass to Publicly-used Property as it Affects Youth and Minorities.

In 1997, Raj was the first recipient of The Advocates’ Society Award of Justice. His experience as an adjunct professor includes “The New Administrative Law”, “Diversity and the Legal Profession” and Legal Ethics. For seven years he was the Advocates’ Society representative on the Equity Advisory Group of the Law Society. He has also served as a Board member and/or Chair of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, two community clinics, Legal Aid Ontario, the Advocates’ Society, Pro Bono Law Ontario, the University of Toronto Law Alumni Council and the Law Commission of Ontario.

In 2003, Raj received the Law Society Medal, the highest honour awarded by the governing body of the legal profession in Ontario. In June 2007, he was awarded Professional Man of the Year by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. In April 2008, he was appointed by the Province of Ontario as the Founding Chair of its Human Rights Legal Support Centre. In 2010 Raj received the award for Distinguished Career from the South Asian Bar Association. In 2013 he was awarded an inaugural Roy McMurtry Fellowship at Osgoode Hall Law School to teach ethics and professionalism. In 2015 he was named Constitutional Litigator in Residence at the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto. He was named one of Canada’s 25 most influential lawyers and judges in 2017, and Raj was awarded an OBA Award for Distinguished Service in 2018, and the SOAR Medal in 2021.

Karim Benyekhlef has been a professor in the Faculty of Law at the Université de Montréal since 1989. He has been seconded to the Centre de recherche en droit public since 1990 and served as its Director from 2006 to 2014. He was also the Director of the Regroupement stratégique Droit, changements et gouvernance (Strategic Law, Change and Governance Group), which brings together some 50 researchers, from 2006 to 2014. At the same time, he was the Scientific Director of the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM – the Université de Montréal’s International Research and Study Centre) from 2009 to 2012. He is now the Director of the Cyberjustice Laboratory, which he founded in 2010. The Cyberjustice Laboratory has obtained in 2015 the award «Mérite Innovation» from the Bar of Quebec (Innovation Award). He holds the Chaire de recherche en information juridique Lexum (Lexum Research Chair on Legal Information) and serves as a member of CÉRIUM’s science and advisory committees. He received in 2016 from the Bar of Quebec the distinction Advocatus Emeritus. He holds the 2019-2020 Alexandre Koyré Excellence Research Chair. He is the co-leader of the research group Law, cyberjustice and cybersecurity at OBVIA (International Observatory on the Social Impacts of AI and Digital Technology).

Member of the Barreau du Québec (Québec Bar Association) since 1985, he practiced in the federal Department of Justice from 1986 to 1989. His teaching and research areas are constitutional law (human rights and freedoms), international law, information technologies law, legal theory and history of law. In 1995, Professor Benyekhlef founded the electronic law journal Lex Electronica, the very first French-language online law journal.

He also initiated the first online dispute resolution projects (the CyberTribunal Project, 1996-1999; eResolution, 1999-2001; ECODIR, 2000-today).  He now serves as Director of the Cyberjustice Laboratory, the work of which is designed to increase and facilitate access to justice. From 2011 to 2018, he lead a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada in the context of the Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI) Program: Rethinking Procedural Law: Towards Cyberjustice, composed of an international team made up of some 30 researchers from over 23 different universities in Canada, the United States, Australia and Europe. He is now leading the project «Autonomy through Cyberjustice Technologies and Artificial Intelligence» (ACT Project) funded by the partnership program of SSHR. ACT aims to increase access to justice through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Over the next 6 years, ACT will be able to count on a multidisciplinary and international team of 50 researchers, as well as 42 partners including research centers, public institutions, legal professionals, representatives from civil society and private sector actors.

Professor Benyekhlef has also participated in developing good governance programs in Africa and the Caribbean (through the Canadian International Development Agency, the United Nations and the European Commission- 1990 and 2000).

Jamie Chai Yun Liew is an immigration lawyer and full professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She is a co-author of Immigration Law, 2^nd ed with Donald Galloway published by Irwin Law, and author of the acclaimed novel Dandelion published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Jamie has appeared at the Immigration and Refugee Board, Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, the Superior Court of Justice and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Jay Chalke has been the Ombudsperson of British Columbia since May 2015. In this role, he has led several wide-reaching systemic investigations, including the first referral of a matter to the Ombudsperson by a legislative committee, which resulted in the 2017 report Misfire: The 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Terminations and Related Matters, the most resource-intensive investigation in the 40-year history of the Ombudsperson’s Office in BC. 

Jay has an extensive background in executive leadership, conducting fair and independent investigations and the use of modern approaches to dispute resolution. His previous roles include leading the Justice Services Branch of the Ministry of Attorney General; first Public Guardian and Trustee of British Columbia, where he was also a member of Canada’s delegation to the Hague Conference on Private International Law, which negotiated the Convention on the Protection of Adults; Deputy Public Guardian and Trustee of Ontario; Head of the Review of Certain Practices in New Brunswick Correctional Institutions; and Crown Counsel with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. He began his career as a Correctional and Psychiatric Services Investigator with the Ombudsman of Ontario. 

Jay is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2006.

Associate Professor Paul Daly holds the University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance at the University of Ottawa, to which he was recruited from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Previously, he was successively Assistant Professor, Associate Dean and Associate Professor at the Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal and held visiting positions at Harvard Law School and Université Paris II, Panthéon-Assas. A graduate of University College Cork (B.C.L., LL.M.), the University of Pennsylvania Law School (LL.M.) and the University of Cambridge (Ph.D.), his influential, bilingual, award-winning scholarly work on public law – dozens of books, peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and shorter pieces – has been cited more than 100 times, including by the Supreme Court of Canada, various other Canadian courts and tribunals, the High Court of Australia, the Irish Supreme Court and the New Zealand Supreme Court. His blog, Administrative Law Matters, was the first blog ever cited by the Supreme Court of Canada. Notable publications include A Theory of Deference in Administrative Law: Basis, Application and Scope (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Understanding Administrative Law in the Common Law World (Oxford University Press, 2021). Since September 2019 he has been a part-time member of the Environmental Protection Tribunal of Canada.

Nadia represents a wide range of clients in both English and French, in complex and often high profile proceedings, including class actions, administrative, regulatory, constitutional, and human rights law cases.

Nadia has represented clients in industries including transportation, financial services, broadcasting and telecommunications, energy, and entertainment, and has particular subject-matter expertise in transportation law, electoral law, access to information and official language rights.

Nadia regularly appears before all levels of federal and provincial courts, administrative tribunals, and commissions of inquiry, and has appeared numerous times before the Supreme Court of Canada. Nadia is a member of the CBA Federal Courts Bench and Bar Liaison Committee. She is the chair of BLG’s Appellate Advocacy and Public Law Group and serves as the Regional Manager of the Commercial Litigation and Construction Group in Toronto. She is also a member and Past President of the Board of Directors of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO), as well as a member of the Ontario Bar Association Official Languages Committee. Prior to joining BLG, Nadia served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada to The Honourable Mr. Justice Bastarache.

John Mather practices commercial and public litigation at DMG Advocates LLP. John regularly appears before the Ontario Superior Court and Ontario Court of Appeal. John’s administrative law work focuses on public inquiries, regulatory investigations and disciplinary proceedings. Most recently, John acted as Commission Counsel to the Honourable Justice Paul Rouleau at the Public Order Emergency Commission, which investigated the Federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy and related protests in January and February 2022. Prior to that, John acted as Associate Commission Counsel at the Collingwood Judicial Inquiry, Duty Counsel at the COVID-19 Long-Term Care Inquiry and represented a witness before the Ottawa LRT Inquiry. John has been a member of the OBA’s Administrative Law Executive for the past two years.

Kate’s litigation practice includes complex corporate/commercial, professional discipline, employment, fraud, and defamation issues. She has appeared before all levels of the Ontario courts as well as the British Columbia Supreme Court, and before various arbitrators and administrative tribunals. Her practice maintains a significant focus on securities regulation, acting regularly on investigations and proceedings before the Ontario Securities Commission, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association.  She also has experience in dealing with matters before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Ontario Municipal Board and the Financial Planning Standards Council.

Kate was lead Commission counsel to former Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco on the Collingwood Judicial Inquiry, which investigated the sale of a 50% interest in the Town’s hydro utility among other things. She was co-lead counsel to the COVID-19 Long-Term Care Commission, which investigated deaths from the virus in long-term care homes. In 2017-18 she acted as Senior Enforcement Counsel in the Enforcement Branch of the Ontario Securities Commission on a secondment.  In that role, she represented Staff of the Commission in numerous enforcement matters, including prosecuting allegations of unregistered trading, illegal distributions and fraud, and advising on confidential investigations. She acted for Staff in a significant joint hearing before the Commission and the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan involving the interpretation of a newly-adopted takeover bid regime and its applicability to a contested takeover in the cannabis industry.

Before joining Crawley MacKewn Brush, Ms. McGrann was an associate in another Toronto litigation firm, also practising civil and regulatory litigation.  Over her career she has advised and represented clients in a wide variety of subject areas ranging from indigenous rights to intellectual property, municipal law and professional negligence. She holds her JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and her B.Sc. from McMaster University, where her research and published work focused on antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

In 2021, Kate received the Lexpert Rising Star Award which recognizes leading lawyers under the age of 40 across Canada. She has also been ranked by Lexpert as a leading Securities Litigation Lawyer. Since 2018, Kate has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation Canada as one of the top litigation lawyers under 40 in Canada. She has also been recognized by Benchmark Litigation Canada as a Future Litigation Star.

For the past 25 years, Mélanie Raymond has focussed on stories that are behind the story.  

A lawyer with a master’s degree in communications and graduate studies in dispute prevention and resolution, she practised law in private practice and in the federal public service before turning to consultations on the social impact of corporate projects abroad. She has also created various communication tools dealing with social and legal issues for the Canadian Bar Association.

As an administrative judge in the field of labour law and immigration law, she has sat on more than a thousand cases and written as many decisions, both at the trial and appeal levels always taking the challenges posed by diversity into account.

Mélanie develops and offers various training sessions on cultural intelligence, communication, conflict resolution, the participatory approach and respect for the dignity of the person.

Sarah Simpson is currently the Senior Director, Corporate and Public Affairs for NATIONAL Public Relations Atlantic. She has worked in the field of communications and public engagement in Halifax for over ten years supporting organizations in many sectors including energy, defense and not-for-profits.

Most recently, Sarah was the Senior Communications Advisor for the Mass Casualty Commission, where she managed stakeholder and public engagement, media relations, issues management and overall communications. She also has extensive experience working on collaborative projects that bring together government, private sector and community organizations to create opportunities for under-represented groups and establish national research initiatives. Sarah values being involved in her community and currently serves on the boards of Alice House and 2B Theatre.

Michael Tansey is a communications professional with over 30 years of experience in strategic communications planning, media relations and crisis communications. A former journalist, Mr. Tansey has worked on four public inquiries, including the Public Order Emergency Commission and the Commission of Inquiry into the Bombing of Air India Flight 182. He is also a freelance writer/photographer.