David Peterson Public Leadership Program Lecture Series
The David Peterson Public Leadership Program Signature Speaker Series: In Conversation with Justice Rosalie Abella
Online
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September 12, 2024 | 5:30PM - 6:30PM
This event will take place online via Zoom.
On Thursday, September 12, Justice Rosalie Abella will sit down with Munk School Distingushed Fellow Mel Cappe to discuss her life, career and influence on law and society.
This event is part of the David Peterson Public Leadership Program Signature Lecture Series. The David Peterson Public Leadership Program is made possible by the generosity of the Honourable David Peterson and Mrs. Shelley Peterson.
About the speaker
Justice Abella is the Samuel and Judith Pisar Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004. She is the first Jewish woman appointed to the Court. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to the American Philosophical Society. She was awarded the Knight Commander‘s Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Germany.
She has bachelor and law degrees from the University of Toronto. She graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in classical piano. After practicing law at the Ontario Bar for four years she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court at the age of 29, the first pregnant person appointed to the judiciary in Canada. She was then appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
She was Chair and author of the Ontario Study on Access to Legal Services by the Disabled in 1983 and the sole Commissioner of the 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, creating the term and concept of “employment equity”.
She served as Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, Chair of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, Commissioner on the Ontario Human Rights Commission; Member of the Ontario Public Service Labour Relations Tribunal; Co-Chair of the University of Toronto Academic Discipline Tribunal; and as a member of the Premier’s Advisory Committee on Confederation.
She has written over 90 articles and written or co-edited four books. She has 41 honourary degrees. She was also awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law; the Alumni of Influence Award from University College; among her many international recognitions and awards for law, freedom and equality rights she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame, receiving the Humanitarianism Award.
She is a Senior Fellow of Massey College. She has taught in Faculties of Law at McGill, Harvard, Yale, Fordham and Toronto.
Justice Abella was born in a Displaced Person’s Camp in Stuttgart, Germany on July 1, 1946. Her family came to Canada as refugees in 1950. She is the first refugee appointed to the bench in Canada. In 1968, she married Canadian historian Irving Abella (1940-2022) and they have two sons, Jacob and Zachary, both lawyers.
Speakers
Justice Rosalie Abella
Mel Cappe