Activist Maude Barlow Discusses "Citizen Politics" at Osgoode Hall Law School Memorial Lecture

TORONTO, October 11, 2000 -- Barbara Betcherman was a shining star, an Ontario Scholar who put herself through Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, and later served on a Royal Commission investigating alleged police brutality.

She went on to become director of legal research for CBC-TV's Ombudsman program and then a successful novelist.

Sadly, on June 13, 1983 at the age of 35, Betcherman was killed instantly in a traffic accident.

Osgoode Hall Law School, with the support of Betcherman's family and her many former friends and admirers, continues to honour the memory of this gifted woman with a lecture series held every other year at the Law School.

The Tenth Barbara Betcherman Memorial Lecture takes place Wednesday, October 18, 2000 at 7:30 p.m. in Osgoode's Moot Court Room.

Members of the public are cordially invited to attend this year's lecture, which will be given by activist, author and policy critic Maude Barlow. The topic of Barlow's address is Global Showdown: Citizen Politics in an Era of Globalization.

Barlow is the voluntary chairperson of The Council of Canadians, a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization supported by 100,000 members. She is the author or co-author of 11 books, and is a director with the International Forum on Globalization, a network of individuals and groups from around the world working to take democratic control of the global economy.

The Barbara Betcherman Memorial Lecture was established in 1985 with the assistance of The Barbara Betcherman Memorial Lecture Fund. The Fund seeks to develop and promote, through lectures and public discussion, ideas about women and the law, including sex equality, feminist theory and applied legal research in areas of law with a significant impact on women.

The Lecture has been presented in the past by such notable women as Gloria Steinem, Margaret Atwood, bell hooks, Catharine MacKinnon, Alanis Obomsawin, Marilyn Waring, Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, and by a panel discussion involving June Callwood, Pat Armstrong, Lorenne Clarke and Carmencita Hernandez.

Osgoode Hall Law School of York University is one of Canada's leading law schools.

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For further information, please contact:

Virginia Corner
Communications Manager
Osgoode Hall Law School of York University
Tel: (416) 736-5820
E-mail: vcorner@osgoode.yorku.ca
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