Title: The Open Court Principle and the Use of NDAs in Air Passenger Complaints

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025

Description: This talk examines efforts by airlines and the federal government to limit passengers and the media from discussing legally binding decisions in air passenger complaints, including the reasons and evidence behind them.

Openness in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings is a right protected by the Charter. That right has come under pressure in recent years, not only through airlines’ use of non-disclosure agreements with passengers, but also through a 2023 amendment to the Canada Transportation Act. The amendment imposes confidentiality on evidence, reasons and decisions in air passenger complaints, preventing passengers from discussing how their cases were resolved. The provision is now the subject of a Charter challenge.

Speakers:

Dr. Gábor Lukács - President | Air Passenger Rights

Title: FLSQ - From Silence to Systems Change: Collective Strategies to End Femicide and Gender-Based Violence

Date: Monday, September 29, 2025

Description: Every 48 hours in Canada, a woman, girl or gender-diverse person is killed in an act of femicide. This lecture examines gender-based violence (GBV) prevention locally in Ottawa, nationally across Canada and internationally within movements to end femicide. It will explore systemic barriers rooted in colonialism and exclusion, alongside new strategies for coordination, accountability and community-led change. Drawing on Ottawa’s three-year GBV Action Plan, the session highlights bold, community-driven approaches to ending femicide.

Speakers:

Astara van der Jagt - Director of Programs, Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW); Founder/CEO, EquiShift

Title: FLSQ - Safer Spaces, Stronger Selves: Gender Justice in Housing and Human Security

Date: Monday, September 22, 2025

Description: The word “homelessness” seldom comes to mind when thinking of women fleeing violence. But rising housing insecurity and overlapping housing crises are creating gender-specific risks. This talk will share research underway through the interdisciplinary Quebec Homelessness Prevention Policy Collaborative, and its legal reform project that uses a human rights-based approach to law to drive social change.

Speakers:

Pearl Eliadis - Associate Professor (professional), Max Bell School of Public Policy; Full Member, Centre for Human Rights and legal pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University

Title: Law'80 Careers in Business Law Panel - Navigating a career in the banking and financial sector

Date: Monday, October 20, 2025

Description: Queen’s Faculty of Law and the Corporate Law Club are pleased to showcase the annual Law'80 Careers in Business Law Panel. This year’s Q&A will focus on navigating a career in the banking and financial sector. Hear from three lawyers on the opportunities and challenges in this area of law.

Speakers:

Sam DiGiuseppe, Law'22 - Associate, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

Alice Abbott, Law'88, MBA'96 - Formerly Global General Counsel, GPS Capital Markets

Erica Young, B.Comm’08 - Assistant Vice President and Senior Counsel, Canada Life

Thirteen Economies, One Country: How the Highest Court Undermined a National Canadian Economy

Canada is one country, but economically it is a patchwork of 13 regional economies. Interprovincial trade barriers cost billions in lost productivity and innovation. As federal and provincial governments work to dismantle these internal walls, the question remains: why do they exist and why have they persisted?

The roots of Canada’s fragmented market lie not only in politics or provincial protectionism, but also in constitutional interpretation. Confederation’s framers envisioned a strong federal role in commerce, but the Supreme Court narrowed federal trade powers and expanded provincial authority over property and civil rights.

This lecture explores how judicial choices shaped Canada’s patchwork economy, why past decisions are difficult to overcome, and why today offers the best chance in generations to build a freer national market.

The Supreme Court of Canada: The first 150 years

Since its establishment in 1875, the role of the Supreme Court of Canada has undergone a series of fundamental changes. The lecture will describe these changes, leading up to the current role of the court in the Charter era.

Speakers

The Honourable Malcolm Rowe

Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

Title: Transforming Justice - A Crime to Rhyme: Race, Rap, and the Criminal Legal System

Date: Friday, May 16, 2025. This podcast was recorded from a panel that was held virtually as part of the 14th Annual Critical Perspectives Conference “Transforming Justice,” hosted by University of Victoria.

Description: In May 2025, Professor Lisa M. Kelly, Ms. Afsheen Chowdhury (Law’24) and Mr. Lamar Skeete joined in a virtual conversation for the 14th Annual Critical Perspectives Conference, “Transforming Justice,” hosted by University of Victoria. Their panel – A Crime to Rhyme: Race, Rap, and the Criminal Legal System – discussed the controversial practice of using rap lyrics to secure criminal convictions. Each year, Prof. Kelly teaches Mr. Skeete’s case – R. v. Skeete (Ontario Court of Appeal, 2017) – in her Evidence course where students consider what happens when art is put on trial. In this conversation across prison walls, Kelly, Chowdhury, and Skeete discuss racial bias, systemic injustice, and the transformative power of education and community between prison and the academy.

Speakers:

Lisa Kelly, Associate Professor, Queen's Law

Afsheen Chowdhury, Law'24

Lamar Skeete

Title: Marcus-Matalon Lecture on U.S. Law - The US Constitution as the Law of the Land: Maps, Militaries, and the Mississippi - Akhil Reed Amar

Date: Friday, March 21, 2025

Description: Explore U.S. constitutional geography, indivisibility and neighbouring borders in this preview of the book Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920, in this year’s Marcus-Matalon Lecture.

Speakers:

Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University

Stephen Marcus, Principal at the Marcus Firm, PLLC

Mohamed Khimji, David Allgood Professor in Business Law; Professor Queen's Law

Title: Visiting Speaker Thomas Isaac - Emerging Issues in Aboriginal Law

Date: Friday, March 17, 2025

Description: Explore Aboriginal title, Métis rights and the honour of the Crown in an in-depth look at Thomas Isaac's new sixth edition of Aboriginal Law.

Speakers:

Thomas Isaac, Partner, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP; Chair, Aboriginal Law Group

Cherie Metcalf, Associate Dean (Research), Professor, Queen's Law

Title: The J.A. Corry Lecture with Samuel Issacharoff - An event to honour the life and work of Professor Alvin Cheung - Emergencies, Alien and Domestic

Date: Friday, March 7, 2025

Description: An old saying has it that war is bad for liberty but good for democracy. In exchange for support to face an external threat and the suspension of rights during wartime, citizens are often rewarded with greater political liberties post conflict. In contrast, responses to domestic “enemies” are more threatening to democracies, undermining legitimacy during a crisis and eroding rights in the aftermath. These themes are considered in light of emerging populist challenges to democracy.

Speakers:

Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law

Cherie Metcalf, Associate Dean (Research), Professor, Queen's Law

Alyssa King, Assistant Professor, Queen's Law