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About
Critical Conversations in Canadian Public Law is a groundbreaking open-access collection of peer-reviewed essays showcasing interdisciplinary thinking on topical public law issues at the forefront of the evolving relationship between state and society.
In Canada, this relationship is undergoing a period of significant reinvention, as evidenced, for example, by the movements for reconciliation, decolonization and Indigenization, the calls to recognize and remedy systemic racism in institutions including police forces, and the recent extension of human rights protections to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
These examples reveal that we are experiencing a moment where claims that challenge the normative foundations of the discipline of public law are being made in real time; claims about citizenship, rights, and access to resources and benefits; claims about what substantive and procedural fairness look like, and for whom; claims about the obligations and limits of the state to proactively address both historical and current injustices; and challenges to the underlying assumptions about the state itself.
Critical Conversations in Canadian Public Law highlights the intersections of critical perspectives–including intersectional approaches to decolonial and Indigenous legal theory, Indigenous constitutionalisms, critical race theory, feminisms, queer theory and critical disability theory–and public law topics, broadly defined.
This collection bridges the divide between traditional, largely liberal, public law scholarship and critical perspectives by centring critical theories as not only relevant, but imperative, to robust, fully contextualized understandings of contemporary public law challenges. Although the essays in this collection could be organized in various ways – the groups they impact; the areas they inform; the methods they employ – we summarize them based on subject area, below. Before that summary, however, we briefly identify five cascading themes reflected across the essays in this collection-and across our varied experiences with the law-that are pivotal to the law's consistent mobilization to reify extant power disparities in society. Those themes are: exceptionalism, capitalism, segmentation, incrementalism, and formalism. As the essays in this collection show, careful interrogation by legal scholars and practitioners of these patterns is crucial to effective scholarly and organized resistance.
Y. Y. Brandon Chen (Contributor)
Y. Y. Brandon Chen is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa.
Allison Christians (Contributor)
Allison Christians is Full Professor and the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University Faculty of Law.
Gordon Christie (Contributor)
Gordon Christie is Professor Emeritus at Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia.
Lorena Sekwan Fontaine (Contributor)
Lorena Sekwan Fontaine is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba.
Véronique Fortin (Contributor)
Véronique Fortin is Full Professor in the Faculty of Law at Université de Sherbrooke.
Ashleigh Keall (Contributor)
Ashleigh Keall is Assistant Professor at the University of Sussex, UK, where she teaches land law, public law, Canadian constitutional law, and Aboriginal law.
Lisa M. Kelly (Contributor)
Lisa M. Kelly is an Associate Professor at Queen's University, Faculty of Law.
Lisa Kerr (Contributor)
Lisa Kerr, JD (UBC), LLM, JSD (New York University) is Associate Professor at Queen's University
Harry S. LaForme (Contributor)
Harry S. LaForme, Anishinaabe, part of the Eagle Clan and a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in southern Ontario. He is a 1977 graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and the past chair of several royal commissions. In 1994, he was appointe
In Canada, this relationship is undergoing a period of significant reinvention, as evidenced, for example, by the movements for reconciliation, decolonization and Indigenization, the calls to recognize and remedy systemic racism in institutions including police forces, and the recent extension of human rights protections to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
These examples reveal that we are experiencing a moment where claims that challenge the normative foundations of the discipline of public law are being made in real time; claims about citizenship, rights, and access to resources and benefits; claims about what substantive and procedural fairness look like, and for whom; claims about the obligations and limits of the state to proactively address both historical and current injustices; and challenges to the underlying assumptions about the state itself.
Critical Conversations in Canadian Public Law highlights the intersections of critical perspectives–including intersectional approaches to decolonial and Indigenous legal theory, Indigenous constitutionalisms, critical race theory, feminisms, queer theory and critical disability theory–and public law topics, broadly defined.
This collection bridges the divide between traditional, largely liberal, public law scholarship and critical perspectives by centring critical theories as not only relevant, but imperative, to robust, fully contextualized understandings of contemporary public law challenges. Although the essays in this collection could be organized in various ways – the groups they impact; the areas they inform; the methods they employ – we summarize them based on subject area, below. Before that summary, however, we briefly identify five cascading themes reflected across the essays in this collection-and across our varied experiences with the law-that are pivotal to the law's consistent mobilization to reify extant power disparities in society. Those themes are: exceptionalism, capitalism, segmentation, incrementalism, and formalism. As the essays in this collection show, careful interrogation by legal scholars and practitioners of these patterns is crucial to effective scholarly and organized resistance.
Y. Y. Brandon Chen (Contributor)
Y. Y. Brandon Chen is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa.
Allison Christians (Contributor)
Allison Christians is Full Professor and the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University Faculty of Law.
Gordon Christie (Contributor)
Gordon Christie is Professor Emeritus at Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia.
Lorena Sekwan Fontaine (Contributor)
Lorena Sekwan Fontaine is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba.
Véronique Fortin (Contributor)
Véronique Fortin is Full Professor in the Faculty of Law at Université de Sherbrooke.
Ashleigh Keall (Contributor)
Ashleigh Keall is Assistant Professor at the University of Sussex, UK, where she teaches land law, public law, Canadian constitutional law, and Aboriginal law.
Lisa M. Kelly (Contributor)
Lisa M. Kelly is an Associate Professor at Queen's University, Faculty of Law.
Lisa Kerr (Contributor)
Lisa Kerr, JD (UBC), LLM, JSD (New York University) is Associate Professor at Queen's University
Harry S. LaForme (Contributor)
Harry S. LaForme, Anishinaabe, part of the Eagle Clan and a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in southern Ontario. He is a 1977 graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and the past chair of several royal commissions. In 1994, he was appointe