Queen's Faculty of Law: QLaw Pod

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 strength...

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...

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 hi...

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, Employm...

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...

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. Th...

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 membe...

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-Lif...

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 min...

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 gro...

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...

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 e...

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 Homel...

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...

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 pers...

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...

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: Ak...

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), Professo...

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 grea...

Title: A Worker-Centered Trade Policy and the False Assumptions of Worker Empowerment Date: Monday, March 3, 2025 Description: The U.S. administration has adopted a “worker-centered” trade policy, claiming to empower workers in trade partner countries. U.S. politicians and bureaucrats cite the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s Rapid Response Mechanism as evidence of the policy’s empowering e...

Title: Between Hak and UR Pride Centre: What the Normalization of the Notwithstanding Clause Might Mean for Democracy Date: Monday, February 3, 2025 Description: Two cases from different provinces, Quebec and Saskatchewan, have reached opposite conclusions on the court’s jurisdiction to entertain judicial review once the notwithstanding clause has been invoked. In Hak v. Québec, the court’s jurisd...

Title: Part time for All: A Care Manifesto Date: Monday, January 27, 2025 Description: Jennifer Nedelsky (Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall) introduces the main argument of the book: Everyone should routinely engage in unpaid care, averaging 22 hours a week, to learn essential skills from the experience. To make this possible, paid work should be limited to 30 hours a week. Nedelsky discusses the man...

Title: Wither free trade? US-Canada Relations in a Post-Tariff Context Description: Get an in-depth look at the impacts of tariffs on the Canadian economy and our ties to our closest neighbour: how they affect us, how Canada might respond, and the changing face of US-Canada relations. Queen’s Law and economics professor Cherie Metcalf will be joined by a panel of guests including trade lawyers, an...

On Thursday January 16, 2025, we recorded the McCarthy Tétrault LLP Lecture in Ethics & Professionalism with Deanne Sowter. Deanne's talk was on Intimate Partner Violence and the Fabrication Myth: Implications for Lawyers’ Ethics in Family Law. Description: Deanne Sowter will explore family lawyers’ professional obligations concerning the fabrication myth—the notion that claims of intimate partner...