Armine Yalnizyan

Keynote speaker

Armine Yalnizyan is an economist who has been writing about trends in labour markets and shifts in social and budgetary policy since the mid 1980s. In 1998, she authored The Growing Gap, a groundbreaking report on income inequality in Canada. In 2002, Armine was the first recipient of the Atkinson Foundation Award for Economic Justice and in 2003, she received the Morley Gunderson Prize from the University of Toronto. In 2006, Armine became Director of Research for the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto. After releasing The Rich and the Rest of Us, an update on The Growing Gap, Armine joined the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in 2008 to advance the work of the Inequality Project.

Pamela Cross

Conference moderator

Pamela Cross is a feminist lawyer, particularly known for her expertise on family law issues as they relate to violence against women. She is a consultant with a number of women's organizations, primarily as Director of Strategic Planning and Policy at the National Association of Women and the Law. She was the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy with YWCA Canada and the Legal Director of Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children. Pamela is a member of the Conference Coordinating Group.

Fatima Ahmad

Fatima Ahmad is a Project Coordinator at Éducaloi, a non-profit organization whose mission is to inform Quebecers of their rights and obligations by providing legal information in everyday language. She is responsible for developing projects that meet the legal information needs of the English-speaking community in Quebec. Fatima has worked at a number of community organizations that provide legal information.

Tannis Atkinson

Tannis Atkinson has been involved in plain language work for over 20 years. An adult literacy advocate, she believes that broadening access to information is essential to building a more equitable and just society. She is the founding editor of Literacies, a journal linking adult literacy research and practice, author of Do your members know their contract?: A clear language guide for CUPE locals (2005), and a freelance editor specializing in plain language.

Carol Barkwell

Carol Barkwell is the Executive Director of Luke's Place, which supports abused women and their children through the family law process. She has presented at provincial and international conferences on issues faced by abused women and their children within the family law system. Carol is a steering committee member of the Violence Prevention Coordinating Council (Durham) and a member of the Unified Family Court Resources Committee in Durham.

Claudia Belda

Claudia Belda is a lawyer and the Public Legal Education Coordinator at Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corporation. Her work allows her to explore her interest in access to justice issues and pro bono law, and has taken her all over northwestern Ontario, providing legal information to the 49 First Nations communities that make up Nishnawbe-Aski Nation. Claudia has participated in the Telejustice Project and the Indian Residential School Awareness project.

François Boileau

François Boileau is the first French Language Services Commissioner and took office for a period of two years in September 2007. Since his appointment, the Commissioner has worked to improve the quality of French-language services in Ontario in order to meet the needs of the Francophone community, ensure its full development, and preserve its culture. The Commissioner has extensive experience in the field of language rights, particularly with the federal public service and with Francophone organizations. He worked for the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and was the first Executive Director of the Court Challenges Program of Canada in Winnipeg.

Gayle Broad

Gayle Broad is an Assistant Professor at Algoma University and has experience in public legal education as both a provider and a researcher. She spent 15 years at the Algoma Community Legal Clinic doing public legal education work on a variety of topics, conducted research for the Chief Justices of Ontario and for the Department of Justice, and led a research project evaluating peer delivery of public legal education for women who had survived spousal violence.

Margaret Capes

Margaret Capes is Legal Education Coordinator of Community Law School (Sarnia-Lambton) Inc. and an adjunct professor in the clinical law program at the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario. She is the former Executive Director of Community Legal Assistance Sarnia and has a Master of Adult Education.

Emily Chan

Emily Chan is a Community Development Lawyer with Justice for Children and Youth and before that was the Street Youth Legal Services Lawyer. Along with her casework, she facilitates legal education workshops in schools and other settings for youth and front-line staff, and is involved with several community initiatives, including the Community Crisis Response Program, the Toronto Inter-Clinic Community Development Working Group, and the Ontario Project for Inter-Clinic Community Organizing.

Lisa Cirillo

Lisa Cirillo is the Legal and Project Coordinator of FLEW (Family Law Education for Women). Before joining FLEW, she was a supervising staff lawyer at Downtown Legal Services, the University of Toronto's student legal aid clinic. Lisa has also worked as litigation counsel at ARCH Disability Law Centre and as counsel to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Karen Cohl

Karen Cohl co-chairs the Linguistic and Rural Access to Justice Project for The Law Foundation of Ontario. She works as a private consultant helping governments and non-profit organizations develop and implement public policy in a range of justice and social policy areas. Karen began her career as legal counsel for the Ontario government and was deputy minister of citizenship for seven years.

Ab Currie

Ab Currie is Chief Researcher, Research and Statistics Division at the Department of Justice Canada. He has been conducting policy research on access to justice issues for more than 25 years. Ab has done extensive research on the incidence and patterns of justiciable problems – problems that have a legal aspect – and on unmet need for access to justice services in civil matters. He is currently conducting research on a variety of legal aid issues.

Zahra Dhanani

Zahra Dhanani is the Legal Director of Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children. She has been working in diversity, access, and human rights for over 17 years. Zahra has worked at legal clinics, run her own practice, and worked with many social justice agencies province-wide. She has also directed special Restorative Justice projects with youth-at-risk across the Greater Toronto Area. In 2008 Zahra was awarded the YWCA Woman of Distinction.

Phillip Djwa

Phillip Djwa is the President of Agentic Communications, which specializes in developing web sites for non-profits, Aboriginal groups, and government. Since 2000, he has led strategy and innovative web projects at Agentic. His clients include the 2010 Olympics, the Genocide Intervention Network, CLEO, the Law Foundation of British Columbia, and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

Deborah Doherty

Deborah Doherty is the Executive Director of Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick where she is responsible for identifying the law information needs of people living in New Brunswick, and developing resources and educational services to meet those needs. She researches and publishes on family violence with a focus on issues in farm and rural communities, sits on numerous violence prevention committees, and is Vice-Chair of the New Brunswick Legal Aid Services Commission.

R. Jack Falkins

R. Jack Falkins is Acting Justice Initiatives Manager at the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres. He practiced law for many years in northern Ontario, specializing in family law, and led a range of community service initiatives, including numerous programs in Aboriginal communities.

Mary Lou Fassel

Mary Lou Fassel is the Legal Director of the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, a non-profit organization that provides a broad range of programs and services to women who have experienced many different forms of violence, including partner assault, sexual assault, and childhood sexual abuse. Mary Lou has been the clinic's Legal Director since 1985 and before that was in a private practice of family law for two years.

Avvy Go

Avvy Go is the Clinic Director of Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. Between 2001 and 2003, she was a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada and was re-elected in November 2006. Avvy has given numerous lectures and educational seminars and published many articles dealing with a variety legal and policy issues affecting immigrants and racialized communities. In 2007, she co-founded the Colour of Poverty Campaign.

Penny Goldsmith

Penny Goldsmith has been the Co-ordinator of PovNet, an online information resource, communication network, and teaching tool for anti-poverty advocates, and poor and otherwise marginalized people, for the past 11 years. She has worked in the anti-poverty community for over 30 years, as an advocate and a writer of public legal education materials in plain language.

Michelle Hamilton-Page

Michelle Hamilton-Page is a Sexual Health Educator at Toronto Public Health with a 15-year history in sexual health education, and a passion for new and interesting ways of reaching target audiences with relevant, client-focussed health promotion messaging.

Alexandra Hickey

Alexandra Hickey has been working in print design and production since 1999. Her recent credits include the design and multilingual typesetting of Navigating Mental Health Services in Toronto: A Guide for Newcomer Communities in Arabic, English, Tamil, Urdu, Somali, Dari, and Pashto, and the design and typesetting of Home For All: A Toolkit for the Supportive Housing and Diversity Group.

Susan Irwin

Susan Irwin has worked at Rural Legal Services, a community legal clinic in Sharbot Lake, since 1989. She started as Staff Lawyer and has been the Executive Director for the past 12 years. When first called to the Bar, she was in private practice in London. An interest in wills and estates led to a position with Crown Trust, guest lecturer sessions at UWO Law School, and a teaching semester in the Law Clerk Program at Fanshawe College.

Wendy Komiotis

Wendy Komiotis is the Executive Director of Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children. Her background includes crisis counselling in shelters for women and children experiencing male violence, working in a residence for newcomer young women, and doing community development work. Wendy was Director of Programs and Advocacy at Sistering, a drop-in for homeless women, and Clinical Director of Parkdale Community Health Centre.

Deena Ladd

Deena Ladd has been working to improve wages and working conditions primarily for workers of colour, low-wage workers, and immigrant workers for the past 17 years. Deena is currently the Coordinator of the Workers' Action Centre, which assists predominantly low-waged, immigrant workers and workers of colour who are in precarious jobs and face discrimination, violations of rights, and no benefits in the workplace.

Michele Leering

Michele Leering is the Executive Director and a lawyer with the Community Advocacy & Legal Centre in Belleville. Since joining the community legal clinic system in 1985, she has worked collaboratively on diverse projects that reflect her passion for encouraging legal literacy. Some of the legal clinic's accomplishments include legal education conferences, a legal rights and resource guide to living on a low income, and a series of legal information videos for the Deaf.

Raine Liliefeldt

Raine Liliefeldt is a visual artist and currently the Acting Communications Manager at YWCA Toronto. She is responsible for coordinating Week Without Violence events, such as the Common Ground Conference, promoting YWCA Toronto's Women of Distinction, and securing publicity from ethno-cultural, neighbourhood, and community media.

Fiona MacCool

Fiona MacCool is the Project Manager of CLEONet, a project of CLEO. For over 10 years, she has worked as an IT project manager, software trainer, and web content developer. A "non-techie" at heart, Fiona is passionate about helping non-profit organizations take advantage of the cost-efficient and time-saving power of the Internet to support community partnerships, share resources, and make a difference. Fiona is on parental leave until early 2009.

Martha Mackinnon

Martha Mackinnon is the Executive Director of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal clinic for low-income youth that produces its own legal educational materials. Martha has presented at conferences across the country on topics such as student and teacher discipline, special education, human rights, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the role of children in family law disputes, and children's privacy rights.

Sarah McCoubrey

Sarah McCoubrey is the Executive Director of the Ontario Justice Education Network. She has over 10 years' experience developing and implementing educational programs for students, aboriginal groups, and youth-at-risk. As a law student, Sarah developed and delivered a law course to high school students in Nunavut. She has practiced education law and written and spoken on education issues at conferences in both the legal and the education field.

Susan McDonald

Susan McDonald is a lawyer and Acting Principal Researcher with the Department of Justice Canada. Her primary areas of responsibility include victims of crime, access to justice, and public confidence. She has a Ph.D. in Adult Education focusing on public legal education in the context of legal aid in Ontario, victims of crime, and the impact of trauma on learning. Her work has been published in numerous academic journals and books.

Hamdi Mursal

Nan Normand

Nan Normand is a Community Legal Worker with the Kenora Community Legal Clinic. For over 30 years, she has focused on social justice and community development. She is a member of the Ontario Project for Inter-Clinic and Community Organizing and the Housing and Homelessness Network of Ontario, and has won Legal Aid Ontario's GEM award for innovation and the Bread & Roses award.

Ivana Petricone

Ivana Petricone recently became the Executive Director of ARCH Disability Law Centre and before that was the Executive Director of Rexdale Community Legal Clinic. The focus of her legal practice has been in the areas of workers' compensation, human rights, and immigration law. She is an experienced counsel at both administrative tribunals and appellate courts.

Lynda Roy

Lynda Roy is the Outreach and Education Mentor at Springtide Resources (formerly known as Education Wife Assault) and a Health Promoter at The Anne Johnston Health Station. Lynda also sits on the Board of Nellie's, a non-profit women's organization which helps women and children in crisis.

Ginny Santos

Ginny Santos is a Settlement Counsellor at Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services with expertise in immigration law and popular education. She has co-facilitated a variety of legal information workshops for immigrant and refugee women and is now working primarily with LGBTQ newcomers.

Marsha Sfeir

Marsha Sfeir is the Executive Director of Springtide Resources (formerly known as Education Wife Assault), an organization that for 30 years has worked to end violence against women and children through education and community development. Marsha has been an educator and activist internationally for over 40 years.

SH/IM/E/HIM

SH/IM/E/HIM is a puppet also known as Shim and Shimmy. Shim emerged from the capable hands of injured workers on June 1, 2006, and was conceived as a way of dramatizing the long-standing slogan "No More Cap in Hand". Shim is a universal injured worker representing men and women of diverse backgrounds. Operated by three people, Shim walks with a cane and doffs a cap marked "justice", refusing to accept the pennies offered by the crowd.

Uzma Shakir

Uzma Shakir is the Atkinson Economic Justice Fellow, Atkinson Charitable Foundation, and a community-based researcher, advocate, and activist. She is the past Executive Director of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians and of the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. She has worked as a teacher, journalist, and researcher. Her work focuses on issues of race, erosion of civil liberties, and critical multiculturalism.

Mary Stratton

Mary Stratton is the Research Director for the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, where she oversees research about justice systems and related issues, particularly in civil justice. Her primary concern is to promote a foundation of evidence that can inform program initiatives that increase access to justice. Mary specializes in developing methodologies appropriate for community-driven collaborations, including needs assessments and program evaluation.

George Thomson

George Thomson co-chairs the Linguistic and Rural Access to Justice Project for The Law Foundation of Ontario. He has been a judge and legal educator, and is the only person to have been both a provincial deputy attorney general and the deputy minister of justice for Canada. George has led the organization that educates Canada's judges, chaired an independent review that led to legislated standards for fair registration practices in Ontario's regulated professions, and chaired Ontario's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

Toby Young

Toby Young is the part-time Managing Lawyer of Pro Bono Law Ontario's pro bono duty counsel project at Small Claims Court and of Law Help Ontario, a pro bono project at the Superior Court. He is also the part-time Provincial Director of the Tenant Duty Counsel Program at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. Toby has been working in the non-profit legal sector for the past 15 years. His law practice focuses on housing and administrative law issues.

Yedida Zalik

Yedida Zalik coordinates several projects for CLEO, including the Six Languages Text and Audio Project. At CLEO, she has also conducted research into linguistic access to legal information. Yedida has worked as an ESL instructor and as a lawyer in community legal clinics, and has done refugee resettlement in east Africa for UNHCR.