“The Power of Migrant Stories”

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On March 29, McGill’s Faculty of Law welcomed Historian and Professor from the University of Zayed, Sonia Cancian. Cancian spoke of how the life stories of migrants in Italy and Canada, much like those of refugees today, may emphatically shape and be shaped by migrant law. Cancian suggests that empathy is the language of the 21st century. It is a vehicle that can be used for social and political awareness and for the undoing and creation of policy for refugees across the globe today.

This talk is brought to you by LegalEase’s Emma Noradounkian.

March 2017–Divest and Resist

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February 2017–Let’s Dump Trump

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Journeying Towards Universal Accessibility and Inclusivity

An Interview with McGill Law’s Universal Access Consultant Gift Tshuma

(Photo credit: https://cielo24.com/category/state-accessibility-law/)

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In the context of McGill’s Faculty of Law, accessibility is a concept that isn’t confined to the proverbial wheelchair. According to Gift Tshuma, the LSA’s summer Universal Design Coordinator and the current Universal Access Consultant, accessibility calls attention to the concerns of a variety of marginalized groups amongst its students and staff: from the less-abled, to the racialized, to the gendered, and to the overall stigmatized.

LegalEase’s Emma Noradounkian sat down with Mr. Tshuma to find out more about his accessibility report of our Faculty and Student Association, the LSA. He also discussed what accessibility means in the Faculty, how the Faculty is accessible in some ways but not in others, and how its students and staff can lead the way towards shedding the barriers to a more inclusive environment for all.

Thank you to Mr. Tshuma for his time and patience in agreeing to the interview and for kicking off the Faculty’s journey towards universal accessibility and inclusivity, alongside the LSA and Dean Leckey.

Episode January 2016–Accessibility, Name Changing, Slavery and the Law

Bienvenues à LegalEase, une émission consacrée au droit qui vise à
en rendre le jargon plus accessible tout en évaluant de manière
critique ses institutions.

LegalEase is a monthly show put together by a collective of former
and current law students at McGill that explores the law and its
institutions with a critical lens and at the same time makes the
jargon of the law more accessible.

First off, LegalEase’s Emma Noradounkian interviews the McGill
Faculty of Law’s Universal Access Consultant, Gift Tshuma, on his
accessibility report, which was released in the late Fall of 2016.
They discussed the details of the report and ways that students can get involved to make the Faculty more accessible and inclusive for all.

Next, we’ll hear from the McGill Legal Information Clinic on the current status of name changing in Quebec, brought to you by Alexa Franckzak.

The Legal Information Clinic is a non-profit,
student-run, bilingual and free information legal service. Their
mandate is to provide legal information, student advocacy services,
referral and community services to the McGill and Montreal
communities, with a continuing commitment to meeting the needs
of marginalized groups. The clinic is located in the SSMU building
on McTavish.

Finally, we’ll feature a talk which Professor Afua Cooper gave
during Professor Adelle Blackett’s “Slavery and the Law” seminar.

A scholar, historian, poet, and commentator– she currently is an
Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Social
Anthropology at Dalhousie University and founded a minor in
Black Canadian Studies. She discusses her research and the history
of slavery in Canada by pointing to individual narratives and the
cultural entrenchment of the practice in codes and statutes. She
completely demolishes the myth of a benign, slave-free Canada.

Vous écoutez LegalEase sur CKUT 90.3 FM à Montreal.

https://soundcloud.com/user-895652362/january-legalease

 

 

Episode December 2016–A Gift or a Curse?

Bienvenues à LegalEase, une émission consacrée au droit qui vise à
en rendre le jargon plus accessible tout en évaluant de manière
critique ses institutions.

LegalEase is a monthly show put together by a collective of former
and current law students at McGill that explores the law and its
institutions with a critical lens and at the same time makes the
jargon of the law more accessible.

LegalEase’s Lillian Boctor reports from the Standing Rock resistance encampments where water protectors have, for now, managed to halt construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline…more on that to come. We’ll also get an update on struggles against the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Ensuite, we’ll hear testimonies from members of the Non-Status Women’s Collective of Montreal, a collective of non-status women self-organizing for status for all here in Montreal, who took to the streets this past Saturday, to mark one year of collective struggle and continue their fight in denouncing the arbitrariness of Canada’s immigration system and its particularly violent impacts on women.

Finally, to add a little holiday flavour to our somber program we’ll get a brief law lesson from the Legal Information Clinic of McGill on the subject of gifts.

Vous écoutez LegalEase sur CKUT 90.3 F.M.

https://soundcloud.com/user-895652362/december-legalease-show

“When the Law is Broken:” Professor Val Napoleon Talks of the University of Victoria’s Proposed Dual Indigenous Law Program

(Photo credit: http://www.uvic.ca/law/about/indigenous/indigenouslawresearchunit/)

Click here to download audio.

After over a decade of planning and discussions, the University of Victoria’s (UVic’s) proposed joint Common Law and Indigenous Law degree program (the JID) is nearing fruition. Once approved by both the federal and provincial governments, Canada will see its first ever dual Indigenous law program, starting next Fall of 2017.

LegalEase’s Emma Noradounkian sat down with one of its architects, UVic Director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit and Research Chair, Val Napoleon. We discussed the details of the proposed program, its parallels to the McGill transsystemic model, as well as issues of Indigenous essentialization and reconciliation in creating such a program.

Thank you to Professor Napoleon for her time and patience in agreeing to the interview. Thank yous are also due to Professor Napoleon, as well as Professors Friedland, Anker, and Kong, for having taught first-year students to be brave, to engage with what we didn’t know, and to question what we thought we already knew about Indigenous laws this past Integration Week.

Episode December 2015 – Rising

Welcome to LegalEase with your hosts Lillian Boctor and Alice Mirlesse for this December 2015 edition of Legalease. LegalEase is a monthly show put together by a collective of law students and recently graduated law students at McGill that explores the law and its institutions with a critical lens and at the same time makes the jargon of the law more accessible.

https://soundcloud.com/lillian-boctor/ckut-legalease-december-11-2015

 

We start the show with an interview from Paris with Daniel T’seleie, a Dene and participant in the “It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm” and “Indigenous Rising” Delegations to the COP21 in Paris, which took place from November 30 – December 12, 2015;

we hear the powerful words of Kandi Mosset, the Indigenous Environemental Network’s Native Energy and Climate Campaign Organizer and member of the “It Takes Roots” and “Indigenous Rising” Delegations at the COP21 in Paris, speaking at a press conference by Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus and Women Leading Solutions on Frontlines of Climate Change on December 8, 2015;

we hear from Alexis, a member and community leader of the WeCopwatch movement based in the Ferguson, Missouri neighborhood where police killed Mike Brown; and Tariq Ramadan, who teaches Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, was speaking at the McGill Faculty of Law last month and we hear an excerpt of his talk entitled, “Accommodation and Securitization, Dilemmas of Muslim Citizenship in Liberal Democracies.”

Episode January 2016 – No Justice, No Peace

Listen to the January 8, 2016 edition of Legalease on CKUT 90.3 with hosts Rachel Davidson, Deborah Guterman and Yuan Stevens.

https://soundcloud.com/lillian-boctor/ckut-legalease-january-8-2016

 

• Professor Helena Lamed and Lysanne LaRose from the McGill Faculty of Law are in studio to speak about their sponsorship of Syrian refugees; l
• isten to a live interview with Billy Joe Mills, one of Tamir Rice’s lawyers, speaking about the recent Grand Jury decision to not indict the police responsible for killing 12-year old Tamir Rice;
• and we also hear a clip from a press conference held by the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, where Mei Ling, a student who filed a complaint for race and gender discrimination and harassment against Concordia University student association ASFA, speaks about the case’s settlement.
• You can hear Legalease the second Friday of every month on CKUT 90.3 and online from 11-12noon EST.

Episode April 2016 – “This drought that will kill us”

Welcome to LegalEase, a broadcast about law cast broadly. We are your hosts Lillian and Rachel…. for this April 8, 2016 edition of Legalease.

LegalEase is a monthly show put together by a collective of current and former law students at McGill that explores the law and its institutions with a critical lens and at the same time makes the jargon of the law more accessible.

Coming up in the show today:

• We speak to Will Fitzgibbons, a journalist with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists about the Panama Papers;
• Workers in Texas jails are striking and we speak with the director for the Prison Justice League, Erica Gammill, in Austin, Texas to find out why;
• But first we hear from Leroi Newbold from Black Lives Matter Toronto on the#BLMTOtentcity, or Black City, organizing with #BlackLivesMatterToronto and Freedom Schools.