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Dr. ELIZABETH ARCHAMPONG was an Associate at Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa and Ankomah, Legal Practitioners, Accra, before embarking on an academic career. She has taught in the Legal Research and Writing programme at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Her doctoral research was on reform of Ghana’s matrimonial property law to achieve greater gender equality. Currently, in addition to teaching Criminal Law, Principles of Law and co-teaching Jurisprudence, she is also devoted to academic administration as Vice Dean. She serves on the board of the Centre for Human Rights and Advanced Legal Research, Kumasi and is a partner on the African Women’s Human Rights Project. Her research interests include women’s rights, family law, customary law, criminal law and feminist jurisprudence. She has presented papers at conferences both in Ghana and abroad.
CONSTANCE BACKHOUSE is a professor of law at the University of Ottawa. She has published a number of books, including Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (1991); Challenging Times: The Women’s Movement in Canada and the United States (1992); Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada,1900-1950 (1999); The Heiress vs the Establishment: Mrs. Campbell’s Campaign for Legal Justice (2004); Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada 1900-1975 (2008). Professor Backhouse served as an adjudicator for the compensation claims arising from the physical, sexual and psychological abuse of the former inmates of the Grandview Training School for Girls (1995-98), and for the former students of Aboriginal residential schools across Canada. She is a member of the board of directors for the Claire L’Heureux-Dubé Fund for Social Justice and the Women's Education and Research Foundation. She is the co-author, with Leah Cohen, of the first book on sexual harassment published in Canada, The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women (Toronto: Macmillan, 1979).
BEVERLY BAIN is a professor in the University Partnership Centre at Georgian College and teaches in the Laurentian University Program in Women Studies and Sociology. Beverly was a consultant on the Jane Doe Audit also known as the Toronto Police Services Audit. Beverly was also a member on the Sexual Assault Audit Committee of Toronto (SAACT).
NATASHA BAKHT (B.A., M.A., LL.B., LL.M.) is an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. She teaches criminal law, family law and multicultural rights in liberal democracies. She was called to the bar of Ontario in 2003 and then served as a law clerk to Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. Natasha’s research interests are generally in the area of law, culture and minority rights and specifically in the intersecting area of religious freedom and women’s equality. She has written extensively on the issue of religious arbitration in family law and has edited a collection of essays entitled Belonging and Banishment: Being Muslim in Canada published by TSAR Publications. Her most recent work examines opposition to women who wear the niqab in the courtroom context and urges that accommodations ought to be available for such a religious practice. Natasha is a member of the Law Program Committee of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). She also tours internationally as a dancer and choreographer.
Dr. GILLIAN BALFOUR is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Trent University in Peterborough Ontario where she teaches in the areas of critical criminology and sociolegal theories. Her research interests include neo-liberal reframing of institutional responses to sexual violence, such as sentencing in rape cases that focuses on therapeutic control of risk rather than reparation for harm and denunciation, pedagogical approaches to sexual violence in university curricula, and feminist scholarship. Gillian has published two edited books (with Dr. Elizabeth Comack): The Power to Criminalize: Violence, Inequality and the Law and Criminalizing Women: Gender and (In)Justice in Neo-Liberal Times. Most recently, Gillian has published in Feminist Criminology examining how restorative justice sentencing in Canada has become a site of backlash against feminist inspired law reforms.
JANINE BENEDET is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, U.B.C., where she teaches courses in Criminal Law, Sexual Assault and Labour Law, and where she is the course co-ordinator for the First Year Law in Context program, which includes professional responsibility and legal ethics. She researches and writes on topics which include the criminal law of sexual offences; the legal regulation of pornography and prostitution; sexual harassment in employment and education; and equality in law school and the legal profession. Professor Benedet has an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia, where she was awarded the Law Society of B.C. Gold Medal, and an LL.M. and S.J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to joining U.B.C.’s faculty in 2005, she was a member of the faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto from 1999-2005. Professor Benedet is a member of the bars of Ontario (1996) and British Columbia (1999). She was a law clerk to Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci at the Supreme Court of Canada and practised labour and employment law at the firm of Heenan Blaikie in Toronto.
MANDY BONISTEEL has been an antiviolence activist for over 25 years - primarily in rape crisis centres in Ontario. She presently coordinates the Assaulted Women's and Children's Counsellor/Advocate Program at George Brown College, teaching both on-line and in the classroom, and consults in the areas of social justice focused curriculum development and training. She is a Community Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women in London Ontario. She is a recipient of the Ontario Medal of Citizenship.
SHARY BOYLE is a Toronto-based artist whose practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture and performance. In 2003 Boyle created a series of illustrations to accompany the text of The Story of Jane Doe. Her work is exhibited and collected internationally, with pieces in the National Gallery of Canada, Musee Des Beaux Arts, Montreal, the Paisley Museum in Scotland and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. In 2008 the Art Gallery of Ontario commissioned Boyle to create two new porcelain sculptures, to coincide with their Frank Gehry re-design. Otherworld Uprising, a monograph of her work featuring an essay by National Gallery of Canada Curator of Contemporary Art Josée Drouin-Brisebois was published last year by Conundrum Press, Montreal in association with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. In 2009 her work will be featured at the Fumetto Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, and included in exhibition The Likely Fate of the Man that Swallowed the Ghost at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
PAULA BROEDERS is the Centre Director of the Kenora Sexual Assault Centre and is of Eurocanadian and Anishinaabe descent. She has been with the Centre for five years and has also served as the outreach worker/counsellor. In her time, she has supported women throughout Treaty 3, providing counselling and workshops. Paula has also worked in a fly-in community in Treaty 9 providing training and counselling to women in that community. As the Kenora SAC director, she has worked to create a “culturally congruent” organization with a focus on anti-racist, anti-oppression politics. She is the granddaughter of one Kenora's long-time feminist activists and founding members of KSAC and Women's Place Kenora. The ongoing support and activism of her grandmother and her "co-activists" leave Paula feeling quite “steeped” in women’s issues in her community. Paula also serves as the Northern Representative on the Executive Committee of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC).
JOANNE BROOKS has been a grass-roots feminist since conception. For more than sixteen years she has had the privilege of enacting her feminist beliefs in rural eastern Ontario at the only rape crisis centre in Renfrew County. Renfrew County covers a landmass larger than the province of Prince Edward Island with 96,000 people. JoAnne supports women who have experienced sexual violation and educates her community on the realities of rape, incest, harassment, other forms of sexual assault and glbttq oppression in a very conservative area. She does not often receive invitations to local dinner parties! Renfrew County houses one of the largest military bases in Canada which means that the rape crisis centre has a unique civilian perspective on sexual violence within military hierarchal culture. JoAnne is looking forward to sharing her perspective at this important conference.
DORIS BUSS is associate professor of law at Carleton University. She teaches and researches in the area of international human rights and criminal law, global social movements, and feminist theory. She is currently working on a three-year project examining identity and international war crimes prosecutions. She is the author (with Didi Herman) of Globalizing Family Values: The International Politics of the Christian Right (Minnesota Press 2003), and editor (with Ambreena Manji) of International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches (Hart Publishing 2005).
ROSEMARY CAIRNS WAY is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. She has been a faculty member since 1989. She teaches criminal law and constitutional law. She served as Vice-Dean of the English Program from 1999–2003 and again from 2005-2006. From 1996-1999, Prof. Cairns Way was the full-time project coordinator of the National Judicial Institute`s Social Context Education Program, a national education program for the Canadian judiciary on issues of equality. Her current research is focused on the infusion of equality values into judicial education, law school pedagogy, professional responsibility and the substantive criminal law.
GILLIAN CALDER is an assistant professor at the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law. Since her appointment in July 2004, Professor Calder has taught Constitutional Law, Family Law, Civil Liberties and Advanced Family Law. Her current research interests include law's regulation of women, work and family; the provision of social benefits through Canadian law; feminist, constitutional and equality theories; and the relationship between performance and law.
MARIA CAMPBELL is a Métis storyteller from Saskatchewan. She was the eldest daughter of seven children born to parents of Scottish, Indian, and French descent. Dr. Campbell is best known for her autobiography, Halfbreed, which relates her struggles as a Métis woman in Canadian Society. Campbell has received many awards for her writing, including the degree Honorary Doctorate in Letters from both York University and Athabasca University, as well as an Honorary Doctorate in Laws from the University of Regina and the University of Ottawa. The Métis Nation also honoured Campbell for her community work, especially with woman and children, with the Gabriel Dumont Medal for Merit. Through 2000-2001, Campbell was the Stanley Knowles Distinguished Visiting Professor at Brandon University. She currently serves as an Elder in Residence at Athabasca University and as the writer in residence at the University of Winnipeg. This year, she receives the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature and Canadian society.
PRISCILLA CAMPEAU is Cree and Métis from Saskatchewan. An advocate for Aboriginal women’s rights and Indigenous education, Ms. Campeau has worked for Athabasca University for 10 years. Currently, Ms. Campeau is Acting Director of the Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and Research. Ms. Campeau has published in Cultural Survival Quarterly, Canadian Women’s Studies and has also published an online article on violence against Aboriginal women. Ms. Campeau, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Lindberg are working with Purich Publishing to complete their book on Colonial Violence, Colonial Law and their Impact on Indigenous women.
ALLYSON CLARKE is a graduate student completing her Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). She is currently conducting research in the field of rape mythology, with a particular interest in the influence of sexist stereotypes and survivor body weight on public perceptions of sexual assault cases. Allyson was born and raised in Saskatoon, SK. Prior to moving to Toronto, ON in 2007 she spent two years working as a Victim Advocate with the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union, providing support and advocacy to survivors of sexual violence and delivering public education to the university community. She plans to return to work in this field once completing her degree.
BLAIR CREW is Review Counsel for the Criminal Division at the University of Ottawa Community Legal Clinic and an Associate at Greenspon, Brown and Associates, Ottawa, where his practice includes a focus on representing women in actions for sexual battery and in actions against public authorities including the police. Blair teaches an Introductory course in Criminal Law at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, and is particularly thrilled to have had the humbling opportunity to introduce, in collaboration with Professors Elizabeth Sheehy and Daphne Gilbert, the new course Studies in Criminal Law: Sexual Assault Law in the fall of 2008.
PEGGY-GAIL DeHAL-RAMSON has worked in the area of sexual assault for several years to provide outreach and advocacy. She was a community member of the Sexual Assault Audit Committee of Toronto and has been employed by Parkdale Community Legal Services for ten years as a Community Legal Worker and Clinical Instructor.
JESSICA DERYNCK has a BA from Ryerson University and will graduate from the University of Victoria with an LLB in June 2009. She will be articling at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP in Toronto. Jessica calls The Story of Jane Doe "the book that saved my sanity" and she is very excited to participate in this conference.
NATHALIE DES ROSIERS occupe le poste de secrétaire par intérim de l'Université d’Ottawa depuis décembre 2008 et le poste de vice-rectrice par intérim à la gouvernance depuis 2009. Elle est également présidente de la Fédération des sciences humaines du Canada. Me Des Rosiers a été doyenne de la Section de droit civil de la Faculté de droit de l'Université d'Ottawa de 2004 à 2008. Elle a occupé la présidente de la Commission du droit du Canada de 2000 à 2004. De 1987 à 2000, elle a enseigné à la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Western Ontario. Elle a été clerc du juge Julien Chouinard de la Cour suprême du Canada de 1982 à 1983 et a exercé le droit dans le secteur privé jusqu’en 1987. Nathalie Des Rosiers a été présidente de l’Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO), du Conseil des doyens du Canada et de la Canadian Law Teachers Association. Elle a été membre de la Commission d’appel de l’environnement, de 1988 à 2000, et membre de la Commission de réforme du droit de l’Ontario, de 1993 à 1996. Elle est nommée Personnalité de l’année – Secteur éducation (prix Radio-Canada–Le Droit) en 2005, et obtient la Médaille de l’Université Paris X en 2004, le prix Partenariat de l’APEX en 2004, la médaille du Barreau du Haut-Canada en 1999 et l’Ordre du mérite de l’AJEFO en 2000.
JULIE DESROSIERS, docteure en droit de l’Université McGill, est professeure à la Faculté de droit de l’Université Laval où elle enseigne le droit pénal, le droit criminel et les droits et libertés fondamentales. Elle est l’auteure de plusieurs articles sur les droits des jeunes et d’un ouvrage sur l’isolement et les mesures disciplinaires dans les centres de réadaptation. Pour l’heure, elle travaille à l’écriture d’un livre sur les infractions d’ordre sexuel. Ses recherches s’inscrivent donc essentiellement à l’intérieur de deux axes. D’abord, la protection de la jeunesse et la délinquance juvénile, avec un intérêt particulier pour l’institutionnalisation des mineurs. Ensuite, la violence sexuelle et sa répression.
SEAN DEWART is the head of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell’s civil litigation group. Sean received a bachelor of laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1983 and a master of laws degree from the London School of Economics in 1985. He began practicing law in 1986 and joined SGM in 1998. Sean's practice focuses on complex commercial litigation with expertise in professional liability and prosecutorial misconduct cases. Sean is a regular speaker on a wide variety of subjects relating to trial practice and substantive law, including labour relations in bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings and suing police agencies. As counsel in the Jane Doe litigation, he had the time of his life.
JANE DOE is the woman who, after a twelve year legal battle, successfully sued the Toronto Police for negligence and gender discrimination in the investigation of her rape. Her case Jane Doe v Metropolitan Toronto Police Force set Canadian legal precedent and is taught in law schools across Canada. Jane Doe is also a teacher, community activist and author. Her book The Story of Jane Doe (Random House, 2003) was nominated for numerous awards and is on the curriculum of several university and college courses. Her recent article "What's in a Name? Who Benefits from the Publication Ban in Sexual Assault Trials" will be published this month in Lessons From the Identity Trail (Oxford Press, 2009). Jane Doe is also a founding member of the Sexual Assault Audit Steering Committee which was formed to implement change in police investigation of sexual assault and in response to the Auditor General's Review of Sexual Assault Toronto Police Service.
TERESA DUBOIS poursuit sa troisième année d’études à la section de common law français de l’Université d’Ottawa. Tout au long de ses études, Teresa a été un membre actif de la Clinique juridique communautaire de l’Université d’Ottawa, dans la division des femmes et la division civile. À l’automne 2007, elle a participé à un projet de recherche examinant la possibilité de litige dans le cas d’une agression sexuelle, d’où elle a développé un intérêt pour les problèmes entourant l’enquête policière des agressions sexuelles. Son implication à la Clinique juridique lui a permis de continuer cette recherche. Après ses études, Teresa complétera son stage à la Cour supérieure de justice de l’Ontario.
ELYA MARIA DURISIN is a doctoral student in Political Science at York University, Toronto, Ontario. Her research interests are municipal regulation of sex-related businesses, occupational health and safety in the indoor sex industry, and sex work and Ontario’s labour legislation. She is also a board member at Maggie’s: The Toronto Prostitutes’ Community Service Project.
MARY EBERTS conducts a national equality practice from a base in Toronto. She has been counsel to the Native Women's Association for 18 years and did the first version of her conference paper in 2005 for a gathering of families and NWAC Board members in the early stages of the Sisters in Spirit Campaign. She has been trying to finish it ever since, and thanks colleagues in the academy and at NWAC, and the women of Cape Croker for their feedback.
CURTIS FOGEL is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. His primary research interests are in deviance in sport. His doctoral dissertation explores the legal issue of consent in relation to on-violence, hazing, and performance-enhancing drug use in Canadian football.
DAPHNE GILBERT is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She teaches Constitutional law, Criminal law, American Constitutional law, and a course on “Animals and the Law”. This year she was privileged to co-teach a new specialized course on “Sexual Assault Law” with her colleagues Elizabeth Sheehy and Blair Crew. Daphne writes in the area of equality law and legal pedagogy, and is happiest when the writing process can be shared with a friend. She is proud to be working on a second article with Rosemary Cairns Way on the challenges and opportunities of teaching law through the lens of social justice theory and practice. Rosemary and Daphne are grateful to the criminal law professors across the country who so thoughtfully answered their questions on how to approach teaching sexual assault in first year classes, and who so generously shared reflections, worries and challenges. She appreciates and is always supported by the warm, funny, brilliant and fabulous feminists at her law school and beyond.
LISE GOTELL is an Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Alberta. Her research expertise is in the area of feminism, law and sexuality and she has published on such topics as feminist litigation, constitutional equality, pornography and obscenity law, gay and lesbian rights and on sexual assault. She is a co-author of Bad Attitude/s on Trial: Feminism, Pornography and the Butler Decision (1997) and a co-editor (together with Barbara Crow) of Open Boundaries: A Canadian Women's Studies Reader (2009). For the past several years, her work has focused on the implications of 1990’s sexual assault reforms, including interrogating the post-Ewanchuk legal standard for consent and the evaluating the effectiveness of legislative restrictions on sexual history evidence and confidential records. Lise Gotell teaches a unique Women’s Studies course entitled “Feminism and Sexual Assault” in which students focus on rethinking resistance through working with Edmonton community agencies and activist groups.
LINDA GREEN is a feminist researcher with a background in education, social science, and health research. She is a Doctoral Candidate in Counselling Psychology for Community Settings at OISE/UT who hopes one day to complete her dissertation about the social and political factors that account for the marginalization of activist principles in feminist counselling and more broadly in feminist anti-violence work. Based on training in feminist psychology Linda bears witness to the constraints imposed on feminist work and feminism in the ‘psy’ disciplines. She agitates these days when she can in support of feminist community-based anti-oppression practice against the dual threats of professionalization and the promotion of science-based practice by psychology and psychiatry.
JOANNE HORSLEY has been working at the University of Saskatchewan since 2001, first for Campus Safety as a Security Officer, and most recently for the U of S Students' Union as the Victim Advocate. Joanne is the founder of the Campus Safety program "It’s All About Awareness... What You Need To Know About Date Rape Drugs," which focuses on creating awareness regarding date/acquaintance rape. As the Victim Advocate, Joanne provides direct services to survivors and works very closely with the USSU Women's Centre, Pride Centre, Help Centre, and Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Centre on gender and sexualized violence awareness projects and events.
NAOKO IKEDA is a Ph.D. candidate in Women's Studies at York University. She is also a researcher at the York University's Centre for Asian Research as well as the Centre for International security Studies. She is currently working on her dissertation, which is looking at a local women's response to the US military's sexual violence and gendered crimes in Okinawa, Japan.
YASMIN JIWANI is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Her doctorate in Communication Studies from Simon Fraser University examined issues of race and representation in Canadian television news. Prior to her move to Montreal, she was the Executive Coordinator and principal researcher at the BC/Yukon FREDA Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children. Her recent publications include Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender and Violence (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006); and an edited collection with Candice Steenbergen and Claudia Mitchell titled Girlhood, Redefining the Limits (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2006). Her work has appeared in Social Justice, Violence Against Women, Canadian Journal of Communication, Journal of Popular Film & Television, Topia, and in the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics.
HOLLY JOHNSON is Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. Her interest and involvement in research on violence against women spans two decades. She was principal investigator of Statistics Canada’s first national survey on violence against women which pioneered a methodology for interviewing women about their experiences of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. This methodology has served as a model for the development of similar surveys in many countries, including the International Violence Against Women Survey on which she is a collaborator. Dr Johnson served as expert advisor to the Secretary-General’s report on violence against women, and is a member of the UNECE Task Force on Violence Against Women Surveys, the UN Expert Group on Indicators on Violence Against Women, and the World Health Organization expert panel on primary prevention of sexual violence and intimate partner violence. Her current research interests include criminal justice and societal responses to sexual violence and intimate partner violence and she is co-author of the upcoming text Violence Against Women in Canada: Research and Policy Perspectives with Dr. Myrna Dawson of the University of Guelph.
In her life before law, REBECCA JOHNSON studied Music. But she was seduced by the siren song of law, and began her legal studies at the University of Alberta. She was called to the Bar in Calgary before spending a year at the Supreme Court as a law clerk to Madame Justice L'Heureux-Dube. She completed her Master and Doctorate of law at the University of Michigan, where she was able to explore her interest in US and Canadian approaches to constitutional equality issues. She spent 5 years teaching in the Faculty of Law at the University of New Brunswick before moving to the University of Victoria in 2001. She has taught in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, legal method, feminist advocacy, legal theory, and business associations. Her current favourite course is one that uses film (mostly films about murderous women) as a way of getting at issues of gender, justice and judgment in law and in popular culture.
MEAGAN JOHNSTON is a third-year law student at McGill University. She completed her undergrad in Political Science at the University of Alberta, where she helped found the University of Alberta Women's Centre. When she's not buried in law books she is a board member of QPIRG-McGill and organizes with Q-Team, a radical queer collective in Montréal.
LOUISE LANGEVIN est titulaire de la Chaire d’étude Claire-Bonenfant sur la condition des femmes et professeure titulaire à la Faculté de droit de l’Université Laval. Elle est aussi membre du Barreau du Québec depuis 1986. Ses champs de recherche et d’enseignement portent sur la théorie féministe du droit, en matière de droits fondamentaux ainsi qu’en obligations conventionnelles et extracontractuelles. Elle est corédactrice de la Revue Femmes et Droit, ainsi que chercheuse au Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la violence familiale et la violence faite aux femmes (CRI-VIFF) de l’Université Laval. La professeure Langevin est membre fondatrice du comité du réseau Genre, Droits et Citoyenneté de l’Agence universitaire de la Francophonie. Elle travaille activement avec les différents groupes de femmes du Québec. Elle a mené plusieurs études sur l’indemnisation des victimes de violence sexuelle et conjugale, sur le consentement des femmes en matière contractuelle, sur les sites web antiféministes, ainsi que sur la question de la traite des femmes, plus particulièrement la question des aides familiales domestiques immigrantes. Ses recherches portent présentement sur l’accessibilité à la justice des victimes de harcèlement sexuel.
RUTHY LAZAR is a lecturer at the law schools at the College of Management and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel in the following fields: gender and the law, criminal law and violence against women. Ruthy has submitted her doctorate in law at the Osgood law school, in which she examined the constructions of wife rape in the Canadian criminal justice system. She is currently a post-doctorate fellow at the University of Haifa, Israel.
The Honourable Madam Justice CLAIRE L’HEUREUX-DUBÉ was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1987 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney after having served as a trial and appellate court judge for fourteen years. Her 50-year career in law is one marked by many achievements in family law and human rights issues and as an advocate for equality. She was Chair of the Canadian Section of the International Commission of Jurists (1981-1983) and International President of the International Commission of Jurists (1998-2002), based in Geneva. In 1998, she received the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. In 2003 she was named Companion of the Order of Canada and in 2004 Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. She is currently active as Chair of the Steering Committee of the Maison de justice de Québec, a pilot project in improving access to justice in Quebec City. Upon her retirement from the Supreme Court in 2002, her many contributions to women’s equality were celebrated in two publications, Adding Feminism to Law: The Contributions of Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, edited by Elizabeth Sheehy (Irwin Law 2004) and a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, edited by Michelle Boivin and Elizabeth Sheehy Volume 15:1 (2003).
TRACEY LINDBERG is Cree and Métis from Treaty 8 territory. Currently a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Lindberg is thought to be the first Indigenous woman to have received a Doctor of Laws from a Canadian university (the University of Ottawa). Dr. Lindberg is also the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships for her academic work including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral award, a Governor General’s medal for her doctoral work (Critical Indigenous Legal Theory) and the 2008 Canadian Associate of Graduate Studies award for most distinguished Canadian dissertation in the social sciences and humanities. Dr. Lindberg has upcoming books with Guernica Press and the University of Oxford Press. A well-loved blues singer and published creative fiction author as well, Dr. Lindberg’s first novel is coming out with Harper Collins in 2010.
SHEILA McINTYRE is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa where she teaches Constitutional Law and Equality Law and Theory. For 25 years, she has been a feminist legal activist involved in test case equality litigation, in law reform initiatives designed to reduce systemic bias in sexual offence laws and in national coalitions formed to advance the equality of disempowered groups through law. Her research focuses is on unpacking the dynamics of systemic inequality in law and on analyzing the poverty of the Supreme Court of Canada’s understanding of and commitment to substantive equality.
SUNNY MARRINER has been a member of the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Ottawa Collective since 1997, and is the founder and full-time co-ordinator of the Young Women At Risk (YWAR) Program, a support, outreach and advocacy program for marginalized and criminalized young women. She provides over 1000 hours of direct support to young women survivors of violence and state intervention annually, and provides organizational training and public education to regional agencies and those working with youth in conflict with the law. She is an annual guest lecturer in the Carleton University Department of Law on questions of access to justice and women’s incarceration, and writes on issues of criminalization and psychiatrization of women survivors of violence. She has served on regional, provincial and national advisory committees for service, research and political/legal policy reform in matters of violence against women. She is currently involved in a three year research project looking at women and the new Drug Treatment Courts.
KATHERINE MAZUROK is currently enrolled in a Master's program at Queen's University in the department of Political Studies. Prior to attending Queen's, Katherine completed two undergraduate degrees in Political Science, Women's Studies, French and Ukrainian Language and Literature at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. After completing her Master's degree, Katherine hopes to pursue a PHD in Political Science.
SHEREEN MILLS is an attorney and senior researcher based at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has worked in the areas of race and gender equality, participating in the drafting of key legislation as well as advocacy. Shereen currently engages in research, advocacy, and strategic litigation on gender based violence, poverty and women’s access to justice, to achieve gender equality. She has published papers and research reports on various aspects of gender and the law, and has made submissions to government on legislation. Shereen has been involved as amicus curiae in a number of groundbreaking cases involving gender based violence. She also teaches on Gender and the Law. She currently sits on the Board of the Gender Education and Training Network (GETNET) in Cape Town, as well as the Women’s legal Centre.
RONALDA MURPHY is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie Law School where she has been full-time since 1999 and teaches evidence, constitutional law, and comparative constitutional law. She has her B.A. from UPEI in 1984, her LL.B. from Dalhousie in 1987, an LL.M. from University of Toronto in 1991, and her doctorate (S.J.D.) from Harvard in 1999. After her LL.B. she clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada and then joined the litigation group at Stikeman, Elliott in Toronto, teaching part-time at Osgoode and Glendon in women and law courses. While at Harvard she taught a feminist theory class at University of New Brunswick Law School. In the early 1990s, she worked at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a focus on consitutional law and women's rights in South Africa.
FRAN ODETTE has been an advocate and educator on disability and gender for 16 years. She became interested in working with women with disabilities and those who provide services to women who have experienced abuse as a result of her own experience of finding services that could support her during her own healing from an emotionally abusive relationship. Her own experience of seeking supports from agencies that had little exposure to working with diverse groups of women with disabilities brought her to wanting to ensure that disabled women and Deaf women had equal and equitable access to services, including information and relevant resources on parenting, housing, sexuality, health, income security and violence prevention.
KARLA O’REGAN is a professor of Criminology at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick where she obtained her B.A. before pursuing a law degree and a Masters of Criminology from the University of Toronto. After clerking with the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, she completed her Masters of Law in the area of feminist jurisprudence at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Karla has also done part-time pro bono work for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer in Toronto, Ontario and worked as legal counsel for the federal Department of Justice. Her current research interests are in feminist epistemology, postmodernism, discourse analysis of sexual assault trials, copyright law, and the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel.
KIM PATE is mother to Michael and Madison and the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. In addition to her current work with and on behalf of marginalized, victimized, criminalized, and imprisoned women and girls, Kim has been a strong advocate working for equality and social justice matters for the past 25 years. A teacher and a lawyer by training, thanks to an Ontario Law Foundation Justice Fellowship, she is also a Visiting Professor with the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. She is also completing post-graduate studies in forensic mental health.
NICOLE PIETSCH is a counsellor with the Sexual Assault & Violence Intervention Services of Halton, and a representative from the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres. Since 1998, Nicole has assisted women and youth living with interpersonal violence, including immigrant and refugee women and survivors of sexual assault. Recently, Nicole has worked with youth survivors of violence who are incarcerated, those living in an institutional setting, and Deaf youth. Nicole identifies as an academic, writer and front-line women’s advocate. She has a particular interest in the ways in which social constructs of sex, gender and race inform Canadian social policy, including law. Nicole presented at Halton’s “Inside and Out” conference on the subject of LGBTQ youth and sexual violence; at Halton’s “Step It Up” breakfast regarding male violence against women; and at The Association for Research on Mothering’s conference “Mothers Without Their Children”. Nicole’s written work has appeared in York University’s Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering and the University of Toronto’s Women’s Health and Urban Life. This year, her critical review of how the media and legal system interpreted race and gender within British Columbia’s Reena Virk case will appear in a collection published by Canadian Scholars Press.
ANDREA QUINLAN is a PhD student in Sociology at York University. Her research interests focus on the institutional handling of sexual violence, looking specifically at the use of DNA analysis within legal cases of sexual assault. Her research explores the complexities of DNA analysis within scientific and legal communities and the questions these practices raise for feminists working in the area.
ELIZABETH QUINLAN teaches and researches in the Department of Sociology at the University of Saskatchewan. Her areas of scholarship are gender, health, and emancipatory research methods. She is also a partner in OBIZ, an entrepreneurial research partnership based in Saskatoon forging links with community, industry, and government. Elizabeth was a founding member of the Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a grassroots activist organization of parents, students, faculty and staff that formed in the face of two high profile sexual assaults on the University of Saskatchewan campus in 2003.
MELANIE RANDALL, Ph.D., LL.B., is associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario. Her research and teaching areas include torts, sex discrimination and the law, Canadian human rights law, and Charter rights. She was a member of the small group of women in WAVAW who worked with Jane Doe on the community organizing, analysis of police failures and demands for police accountability which laid the groundwork for the Jane Doe litigation. Her published work has addressed legal remedies for gendered violence, and legal regulation of women’s reproductive rights. This work has examined criminal law and spousal sexual assault, comparative approaches to asylum claims based on gender persecution in refugee law, legal constructions of “ideal victims” in domestic violence criminal cases, legal (mis)representations of women’s responses to sexual violence and abuse, and engaging public and private law to seek state accountability for inequality.
LAURA ROBINSON is an award-winning writer and former member of Canada's national cycling team. Her work on the cyclical nature of sexual abuse in hockey resulted in a CBC documentary, her book, "Crossing the Line: Violence and Sexual Assault in Canada's National Sport", and the top award in 2002 from Play the Game, an international journalists' and advocacy group located in Europe. In 1992, she became the first journalist in Canada to write about sexual abuse in sport; in 2002 her book, Black Tights: Women, Sport and Sexuality questioned the objectification and commodization of women athletes. Her play, “FrontRunners,” on First Nation long-distance runners, has toured Canada and Scandinavia, while the film version was broadcast on APTN and is available through the NFB. Robinson has covered four Olympics, and is an accredited journalist for the Vancouver Games. She has written critically about VANOC's lack of commitment to First Nations youth, and to women athletes. She is a volunteer XC ski and mountain bike coach at Cape Croker First Nation Elementary School on the shores of Georgian Bay and continues to compete as a master XC skier.
SANDA RODGERS is a Professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. She has been a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada and Commissioner of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, and is a recipient of the Women Lawyers Association President’s Award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession” and of the Business and Professional Women’s Association Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Gender Equity.” Her primary area of research is health law, with particular emphasis on women’s reproductive rights.
EMILY ROSSER is a PhD candidate in Women's Studies at York University in Toronto. Her main research interests include gender-mainstreaming and international law, testimony and trauma, and the function of women and sexual violence in human rights reporting and in particular in truth commissions. She recently published the results of her Masters research in the Gender and Transitional Justice issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice. Building on this work, in 2009 she will participate in a multi-lateral feminist research project on the impact of the Guatemalan national reparations programme on women survivors of violence and sexual assault. Her interest in Canadian sexual assault law and activism stems from ongoing work with survivors of sexual assault and torture in Toronto and Montreal, and the urgent need among feminists to think and work transnationally on these issues.
RAKHI RUPARELIA is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. After clerking at the Ontario Court of Appeal, Professor Ruparelia completed her graduate studies in law at Harvard University. Following her graduate work, she joined the Prison Reform Advocacy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio where she established and directed a community legal clinic to assist ex-prisoners with legal issues impeding their transition back to society. Prof. Ruparelia also has a background in social work, a perspective that she brings to her research, which focuses on critical race and feminist perspectives on the law. As a social worker, she co-facilitated support groups for survivors of sexual violence. More recently, Prof. Ruparelia has conducted judicial training on sexual assault issues. She is currently working with the National Judicial Institute to organize anti-racism training for judges.
LOUISA RUSSELL has been a feminist active for ten years with Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. With this all-woman, all-feminist collective, she operates a transition house and 24 hour rape crisis center assisting women escaping male violence to create a positive, force for changes in attitudes, laws, and institutional procedures towards the prevention and ultimately the eradication of the oppression of women. Louisa through VRRWS provides comfort advocacy and alliance including by intervening in Bonnie Mooney v. RCMP in 2003. In April 2008 with others she reviewed of 35 years of the collective's efforts to improve the police response to violated women and convened the international feminist gathering: Policing Male Violence.
SHANNON SAMPERT is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Winnipeg. Her fields of research include media, Canadian politics and gender. She received her PhD from the Department of Politics at the University of Alberta in 2006. She received her MA from the Department of Communications at the University of Calgary and her BA with distinction in Political Science from the University of Alberta in 1998. Her forthcoming reader Mediating Canadian Politics (Pearson: 2009) co-edited with Linda Trimble (University of Alberta) examines the different intersections between modern politics and media and examines their effects on democracy. Her second book - Let Me Tell You A Story: Sexual assault myths in English Canadian newspapers - analyzes the myths and stereotypes found in six newspapers in Canada in 2002. It is under review with UBC Press. Before entering the world of academe, Shannon was an award-winning television producer, news reporter, writer and communications consultant and because old habits die hard, she writes the occasional column for the Winnipeg Free Press.
FIONA SAMPSON is the Director of the African and Canadian Women’s Human Rights Project. Fiona worked as a Staff Lawyer and as the Director of Litigation at the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) for 6 years. Fiona has appeared as counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada on many occasions representing women’s NGO’s in different equality rights cases. Fiona has also worked as the Legal Director at Metrac (Metro Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children), and as counsel for the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Fiona has worked as a legal consultant with, amongst others, the Ontario Native Council on Justice, the Temegama Anishnabai, the DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) of Canada, Education Wife Assault, and the Ethiopian Muslim Relief and Development Association. Fiona has published numerous articles on women’s equality rights and has her Ph.D. in women’s equality law from Osgoode Hall, York University.
JOSEPHINE SAVARESE is a member of the Saskatchewan Bar and an Assistant Professor with the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, St. Thomas University Fredericton, New Brunswick. She holds law degrees from both the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University. Examining sentencing practices and procedures, in relation to Aboriginal justice, s. 718.2(e) and other racialized contexts are research areas where Professor Savarese is working.
ELIZABETH SHEEHY, LL.B. (Osgoode 1981), LL.M. (Columbia 1984), LL.D. (Honoris Causa LSUC 2005), has been a very happy member of the feminist community at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa since 1984. She has always taught Criminal Law and Procedure as well as “Women’s Law” courses such as Women and the Law, Women and the Legal Profession, and most recently, Sexual Assault Law (with Blair Crew and Daphne Gilbert) and Defending Battered Women on Trial (with Kim Pate). She has researched and published in the area of sexual assault law and counts as proud moments her involvement in Jane Doe’s successful suit against the Toronto Police and being cited by Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé in her exquisite dissent in the Seaboyer case. Elizabeth credits her students in the Faculty of Law and Jane Doe with supplying the heart and soul needed to launch this conference.
JANA SHOEMAKER is in her final semester of her LLB at the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. During her studies, she has focused on issues relating to criminal law, law reform and sexual assault. Ms. Shoemaker was also selected as a member of the University of Saskatchewan Jessup International Moot Team, and also for the Western Canadian Moot Team, a trial advocacy competition. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Shoemaker completed a BA in International Relations/Peace and Conflict Studies and spent a year in South Africa for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, working with community volunteers. Her commitment to community support and development continued during law school, where she was an active member of the Scales of Social Justice student group, and coordinated the College's Pro Bono program, placing law students with community organizations. Beginning in July 2009, Ms. Shoemaker will be articling with Justice Canada in the Northwest Territories.
ERIN STEVENS is a second year LLB candidate in the English program at the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa, with a B.A. (hons) in Human Rights and Law from Carleton University. For the past three years Erin has served as a research assistant to Professor Doris Buss in her extensive research into sexual violence and genocide. Erin has spent the last two years tracking the treatment of sexual violence in the ICTY/ICTR. Erin’s own research focuses include sexual assault in the Canadian context and its relation to section 15 of the Charter. Erin had the privilege of tackling this research focus under the direction of Professor Sheila McIntyre, analyzing the progression of the law regarding the use of victims’ records during the prosecution of sexual assault. Currently Erin serves as a Legal Research Intern at the Canadian Centre for International Justice, working on various war crimes issues. During her time with the CCIJ Erin has been working on a proposal to the Department of Justice to adopt gender related protocols to improve the prosecution of sexual violence for victims and witnesses in Canadian war crimes prosecution.
LORI SUDDERTH, Ph.D. Sociology (Indiana University), M.A. Sociology (Indiana University), B.A. Sociology (University of Texas), is Chair of the Sociology Department at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. She has served as Director of the Criminal Justice Program (2001-2008) at her university, as Research Associate for The Village for Families & Children, Inc., Hartford, Connecticut, 1999-2000, and as Research Project Coordinator for the Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services, State of Connecticut, 1998. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Mental Health Services Program, Institute of Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, 1996-1998. She researches and writes widely in the area of male violence against women, including sexual assault and spousal assault.
ALISON SYMINGTON is the Senior Policy Analyst for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. She joined the Legal Network staff in September 2007. Previously, she was Manager of Research with the Toronto-based Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), working on issues of human rights accountability, international trade and aid policy, and poverty eradication and collaborating with international human rights and gender equality advocates. She has also served as a consultant for Amnesty International’s global Stop Violence Against Women campaign, and as an intern for the United Kingdom-based International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS). Alison holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree (with a major in international development studies) from the University of Guelph, an LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University.
DAVID M. TANOVICH, M.A. (Toronto), LL.B. (Queens), LL.M. (NYU) is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, evidence, legal ethics, and racial profiling. He is also Academic Director of the newly formed Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP) at Windsor Law. Professor Tanovich has written over 40 books. His most recent book is The Colour of Justice: Policing Race in Canada (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2006). Professor Tanovich has been invited to present at numerous conferences and other fora, including endowed lectures at Dalhousie Law School and the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. His research has been frequently cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and other appellate courts, law reform and human rights commissions. It has also been recognized in various awards such as the 2005 University of Windsor Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity and 2006 Canadian Association of Law Teachers’ Scholarly Paper Award.
ERIN TOLFO completed an undergraduate degree in Criminology and Psychology at Vancouver Island University and worked in Vancouver, BC as a paralegal prior to moving to Halifax to commence her LL.B. at Dalhousie Law School. The summer after first year law was spent working on the Borden Ladner Gervais LLP Research Fellowship with Professor Ronalda Murphy. Erin will return to Vancouver this summer and again upon completion of her law degree in 2010 to article with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.
JULIA TOLMIE is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Auckland, where she has taught for the last ten years. Prior to that, she spent ten years as a legal academic at the University of Sydney. She teaches criminal law and women and the law. Her research specialities have included the following topics: battered woman's syndrome and defences to murder, fathers rights groups in the context of family law, negotiating contact and care arrangements for children with the perpetrator of domestic violence, suing the police in negligence for their failure to respond adequately to domestic violence, corporate social responsibility, and alcoholism and the criminal defences. Prior to having her two children (7 years and 10 months) she also had a personal life, which included a longstanding interest in the arts (particularly painting and sculpture) and the environment.
LUCINDA VANDERVORT holds degrees in law and philosophy from Bryn Mawr College, McGill, Queen’s University (Kingston-Law), and the Yale Law School, and is a member of the Ontario bar. She has done legal work in LEAF’s strategic litigation program in connection with a number of SCC cases and is a proponent of collaborative research and theorizing. Her legal and philosophical writings are widely cited by academics and law reformers in Canada and internationally; her analyses of sexual assault law, consent, theory of criminal responsibility, and mistake of law are cited, quoted, and applied in a number of judgments by the Supreme Court of Canada and other levels of Court in various provinces. Her current research and law teaching deals with the interaction of theories of criminal responsibility, consent, sexual assault, the law of evidence, administration of justice, and legal theory. Her conference paper emerges from that intersection to focus on prosecutorial discretion, the rule of law, and the need for institutional changes to improve the handling of sexual assault cases by the Canadian legal system.
DIANA YAROS is a feminist activist who has been engaged in violence against women work for thirty years. She was active in organizing some of the first Take Back the Night Marches in the early 80s and has worked to defend the individual and collective rights of sexually assaulted women in public policy, the justice systems and other Kafkaesque situations that women face in dealing with public institutions. More recently she was involved in developing a training program for the Quebec coalition of sexual assault centres, le RQCALACS, to help anti-violence workers across the province to better understand intersecting oppressions and to have the tools to defend the rights of immigrant and refugee women.
JESSICA YEE is the Founder and Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, and works across North America to address issues of healthy sexuality, reproductive justice, cultural competency, and youth empowerment. At 23, she is a proud Mohawk woman who is also involved in lateral violence prevention education work with organizations such as the Highway of Tears Initiative in British Columbia and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She is a strong believer in the power of youth voice and agency. You can see her activisting it up on sites like Racialicious, Shameless Magazine: For Girls Who Get It! or writing for the Turtle Island Native News and the Kahnawake Eastern Door. She teaches with the Alberta Society for the Promotion of Sexual Health, and currently coordinates both the Sexual Health Education and Pleasure Project for Youth (SHEPP) and the Taking Action Project - Art and Aboriginal Youth Leadership for HIV Prevention. Jessica is also the 2009 recipient of the YWCA's Young Woman of Distinction Award.