Title: Suing City Hall: Class Actions as Private Enforcement of Local Governments

Date: Monday, March 23, 2026

Description: Using data from Israel, this study examines the scope and effectiveness of class actions filed against local governments. The researchers analyzed about 2,000 cases, coding key details such as subject matter, outcomes and remedies. The findings show class actions can strengthen oversight of local governments, while also identifying ways to reduce misuse of the process by plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Speakers:

Omer Kimhi - Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Haifa University

Title: Upside Down: Anti-Palestinian Racism, Judicial Bias, and Inverted Racial Power

Date: Monday, March 16, 2026

Description: This paper wrestles with the contradiction of legal objectivity/subjectivity using the case study of the bias complaint against Justice Spiro for his interference in the hiring of a scholar at the University of Toronto who applied international law to Israel. We trace the meaning of judicial bias from the Court’s leading decision (RDS) to its citation by B’nai Brith of Canada League for Human Rights (B’nai Brith) in its successful intervention before the Federal Court in Justice Spiro’s case. Whereas RDS conceived of bias as permitting (rare) judicial anti-racism, B’nai Brith, the Canadian Judicial Council, and the Federal Court all conceived bias as, in effect, permitting judicial racism—what we term an “upside down” analysis premised on Zionist subjectivity.

Speakers:

Joshua Sealy-Harrington - Associate Professor & Chair in Palestinian Human Rights in Canada

Title: Reimagining Democratic Rights

Date: Monday, March 2, 2026

Description: Democratic rights are the most important rights in the Charter because they are what restrains authoritarianism; they are exempted from the Notwithstanding Clause so that democracy cannot be legislated out of existence. Justice Feasby will argue in this presentation that our democratic rights jurisprudence is based on historical fiction, lacks a coherent political theory, and uses a Charter interpretive methodology that is anomalous. The Supreme Court of Canada’s substitution of fuzzy derivative rights like “effective representation” and “meaningful participation” for the actual rights provided for in Charter s 3 insulates limits on democratic rights from genuine scrutiny and leaves democracy vulnerable to abuse. He will propose a new approach to the Charter s 3 rights to vote and to stand for election. Justice Feasby contends that democracy would be better protected by a modest approach to Charter s 3 that hews closer to the constitutional text and recognizes the purpose of democratic rights as only to be protection for the minimal conditions of democracy.

Justice Colin C.J. Feasby graduated from the University of Alberta Faculty of Law in 1998. He later attended Columbia University where he earned an LL.M and J.S.D. He practiced at Osler for over 20 years, serving the Managing Partner of the Calgary Office for four years. As a lawyer, Justice Feasby had an active trial and appellate practice acting for corporate clients as well as a significant pro bono public interest practice. He appeared before many courts across the country, including the Supreme Court of Canada several times. He has written extensively on constitutional law subjects, particularly concerning democracy issues. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2020 and then to the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta in 2021. In his time as a justice, he has written many significant decisions including concerning the rights of family members to intervene in patient decisions about Medical Assistance in Dying, the constitutionality of changes to Alberta regulations governing opioid prescription, the constitutionality of the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act, and whether a referendum on the independence of Alberta from Canada contravenes Charter and Treaty rights.

Speakers:

Justice Colin C.J. Feasby

Title: Making Disability Rights a Reality - Honouring the Legal Rights of the Minority of Everyone

Date: Monday, February 23, 2026

Description: Mr. Lepofsky visits Queen’s University as a Visiting Professor of Disability Rights bringing extensive knowledge that spans a wide range of legal areas including Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Tort Law, Contracts, Property Law, Labour Law, Employment Law, Human Rights Law, and criminal appeals. He holds an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, an LL.M from Harvard Law School, and several honorary doctorates. He chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and has held key leadership roles advocating for disability rights across multiple sectors..

Speakers:

David Lepofsky - Visiting Professor of Disability Rights

Title: Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World

Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Description: The world is facing a deepening climate crisis, the legacy of genocide and mass atrocities, and a rise in hate and division. There is an urgent need to renew the promise of universal human rights, both in our communities and globally.

Alex Neve’s 2025 CBC Massey Lectures examine that challenge, highlighting the importance of people power and solidarity. In this talk, Neve will outline the themes of the lectures, including the fractured state of the world, the importance of universality and a hopeful path forward.

Speakers:

Alex Neve - Professor of international human rights, University of Ottawa; and 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer

Title: Constitutional Silence, Section 36 and Public Services on Indian Reserves

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Description: Canada’s long-delayed legal reckoning with unequal public services on Indian reserves is only beginning. This article has two main parts. First, it examines why courts have largely avoided the constitutional questions raised by decades of inadequate services on reserves. That silence is striking, given the persistence and scale of the problem.

Second, it argues that Section 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982 should play a central role in that debate. Section 36 calls for “reasonably comparable services” and “essential public services of reasonable quality” for all Canadians. Yet Indian reserves have effectively been excluded from equalization, a gap that has allowed inequality to persist.

The article proposes treating Section 36 as a set of directive principles — not directly enforceable rights, but more than political promises — to guide courts and governments. Although no Canadian judge has yet used Section 36 this way, it offers a promising tool for addressing long-standing inequities.

Speakers:

Andrew Stobo Sniderman - PhD Cand., Harvard Law School & Co-author of Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation

We are pleased to have Professor Jim Phillips, one of Canada's, and the world's, leading legal historians visit us. Professor Phillips will provide general remarks on the field of legal history before exploring the subjects addressed by his recent book: the law governing married women in the later nineteenth century as well as the operation of the civil courts, the forensic skills of leading members of the Ontario legal profession, constitutional law, and parliamentary divorce during this time.

Title: End-of-Life Online Fireside Chat

Date: Monday, December 8, 2025

Description: On Monday, December 8, we held a free online Fireside Chat on End-of-Life Law. Dean Colleen Flood was joined by Alexandra Manthorpe (Partner, Cunningham Swan), Leanne Kaufman (President and CEO RBC Royal Trust) and Dr. David Freedman (Associate Professor, Queen’s Law) for an important panel discussion on End-of-Life Law & Planning. Covering important areas, such as Wills, Trust, and Estates, this panel is intended to de-mystify the legal implications around planning for End-of-Life.

If you are interested in learning more about End-of-Life learn more about our session that we are running in early January. - https://law.queensu.ca/programs/end-of-life

Speakers:

Colleen M. Flood - Dean, Queen's Faculty of Law

Alexandra Manthorpe, Law'10 - Partner, Cunningham Swan

Leanne Kaufman, Law'96 - President and CEO RBC Royal Trust

Dr. David Freedman - Associate Professor, Queen’s Faculty of Law

Title: Unreasonably hypothetical: what’s wrong with s.12

Date: Monday, November 17, 2025

Description: Proportionality in punishment is deeply uncertain. Even when people agree on facts and values, they often reach different but reasonable conclusions about appropriate sentences. Against this backdrop, the Supreme Court of Canada’s reliance on “reasonable hypotheticals” to strike down mandatory minimums under Section 12 of the Charter is flawed. Abstract principles cannot produce a single correct sentencing outcome. The Court’s use of “reasonable hypotheticals” obscures the comparative reasoning behind sentencing in a common law system and replaces democratic accountability with judicial intuition.

Speakers:

Vincent Chiao - Professor and Associate Dean, Graduate Programs, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law

Title: FLSQ - Garnet Families: Creating a research ecosystem centering defence and public safety families

Date: Monday, November 10, 2025

Description: In 2022, Dr. Cramm consolidated her research program under the interdisciplinary and international Families Matter Research Group (FMRG) (https://garnetfamilies.com/fmrg/). The concept of “Garnet families” has become a unifying framework for the group’s research, network and partnership activities.

Garnet families experience a unique combination of lifestyle factors — risks, identities, logistics and mobility — that interact dynamically throughout the life course. Most members of the FMRG team have personal connections to Garnet families, viewing their research as a form of service to that community. These connections deepen their commitment and provide insights that enrich the work.

Dr. Cramm serves as project director for the SSHRC-funded Garnet Families Partnership (2024–31), an international collaboration among Garnet families and those who study, serve and support them. Using a collective impact approach, the partnership aims to strengthen networks, expand knowledge and build capacity.

Speakers:

Dr. Heidi Cramm - Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Queen’s University