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Program

Please find below a preliminary program.

CPD Hours: This conference consists of 6h (Substantive) with the Law Society of Ontario (LSO).

8:30 AM - 9:00 AM

Registration & Refreshments


9:00 AM - 9:15 AM

Conference Opening

Welcome Remarks from Dean Trevor Farrow (Osgoode Hall Law School).

Chairs:  Benjamin L. Berger, Emily Kidd White and Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode Hall Law School)


9:15 AM - 10:00 AM

Opening Address

A Review of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Constitutional Jurisprudence 

Speakers: Sonia Lawrence and Benjamin L. Berger (Osgoode Hall Law School)


15-Minute Break

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM

Plenary I

Indigenous Governance and the Canadian Constitution

Description to come.

Panelists
Karen Drake (Osgoode Hall Law School) - Dickson v. Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, 2024 SCC 10
Margot Young (Allard School of Law, UBC) - Dickson v. Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, 2024 SCC 10
Hadley Friedland (Faculty of Law, University of Alberta) - Reference re An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, 2024 SCC 5
Kerry Wilkins (Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) - Quebec (A.G.) v. Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan, 2024 SCC 39

Chair: Emily Kidd White (Osgoode Hall Law School)


15-Minute Break

11:45 AM - 12:30 PM

The Laskin Lecture 2025 with the Honourable Justice Mary T. Moreau

Supreme Court of Canada

Co-sponsored with the York Centre for Public Law and Public Policy


1-Hour Lunch

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

PLENARY II

The Constitutional Structure of Criminal Justice

This plenary session will examine a set of cases from the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2024 jurisprudence that raise, in various ways, questions about structural dimensions of constitutional rights and remedies in Canadian criminal justice. Panellists will consider the implications of constitutional structure for Charter remedies (R v Power), what section 11(d) says about the structure of military justice (R v Edwards), the internal structure of the legal rights and its implications for standing and remedies (R v Brunelle), and the Court’s ongoing wrestling with the analytic structure of section 8 (R v Bykovets; R v Campbell).

Panelists:
Vanessa MacDonnell (Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa) - Canada (AG) v Power, 2024 SCC 26
Preston Lim (School of Law, Villanova University and Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) - R v Edwards, 2024 SCC 15
Micah Rankin, KC (BC Ministry of Attorney General) - R v Brunelle, 2024 SCC 3
Pauline Lachance (Counsel with the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales) - R v Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6; R v Campbell, 2024 SCC 42
Francois Tanguay-Renaud (Osgoode Hall Law School) - R v Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6; R v Campbell, 2024 SCC 42

Chair: Benjamin L. Berger (Osgoode Hall Law School)


15-Minute Break

2:45 PM - 4:15 PM

PLENARY III

Auer, York Region, Yatar, Commission Scolaire

Description to come.


5:00 PM

Closing of Conference