 as a justice lawyer would be one of the primary pieces that really assisted me with that work. And also, of course, understanding a little bit more about public inquiries, because public inquiries are very different. And I'm now working on my third public inquiry, which most lawyers don't work on this many public inquiries. And definitely, every one of them has a theme or a background that has a criminal element to it and understanding what a criminal file looks like and the various government actors that are involved in a criminal process are definitely things that I have benefited from. I also, in my work with family law, I have used a lot of my understandings of the criminal processes to work with people like, for example, Emma, who is going to be speaking to you later, understanding some of the resources and community-based things that we need to think about when we're working on child protection cases and how can we work with those criminal justice systems or what are the implications of some of the things and choices that we might make? So understanding the interactions between the various systems and even understanding all of those interactions within the current position. So one of the mandates of the current commission I'm working on is the intimate partner violence and understanding the role of intimate partner violence within the context of the commission itself and knowing how that all works and weaves and knits together within the criminal justice system here in Nova Scotia, or the justice system period has been something that I've certainly benefited from all of my experiences as a crown and also defense counsels, because I have worn both hats. The other thing that I did too really early on in my career was I taught at the community college in Saskatchewan, so I taught a court worker program. But again, I had already had the benefit of working as a defense counsel, so I had an understanding of the court process and had an understanding of how it all worked because my role was obviously to teach students in that program what the role would be of a court worker and understanding sort of all of the processes in the criminal justice system in particular. So in the course of my career, which has been very, I've had a lot of different experiences and I didn't set out to do that, it just happened that way. I've benefited from the traditional role, but I've also had the opportunity to do things that are a little bit different and capitalizing on my experience of working in those traditional roles and understanding those processes and then taking those to another sort of more non-traditional role, whether that's teaching, working in these public inquiries and understanding sort of how can we do things differently. It also has been something that I've been able to use in terms of restorative thinking. So in Nova Scotia, we've had some challenges with respect to the Gladue reports, for example, and some of the Indigenous Justice Initiative. So it's been something that I've also been able to contribute, I guess. So I have never been sort of formally paid for or been employed doing that work, but I've certainly contributed to the discussion on some of the work that's kind of underway now with respect to looking at an Indigenous Justice Initiative. Overall, that isn't just criminal in nature. So I guess from my perspective in terms of how would you enter this, my recommendation would be that you do have to sort of start with the boots on the ground in the traditional role because from my perspective, the foundational work that I did as a Articling student or in my junior years in sort of the trenches was the foundation that I needed to do the work that I am doing now. Definitely opportunities with respect to public inquiries, for example, come at various times, they're not, it's not a consistent type of work. It certainly is an opportunity to come forward and maybe you can enter the practice of law through that, through an Articling process or that kind of thing. Or even as a policy person kind of will speak to that, I'm sure, later. But at the end of the day, from my perspective, if you're asking my opinion as to how would you have the experiences that I've come to have, I would say that you would have to start off doing the very basic sort of, you know, Articling and get into the trenches because you really have to have a foundation of how the system works to be able to sort of take it to the next level. So those would be my comments with respect to my career path. Thank you so much, Jennifer. That was, you have a thank you in the chat as well. Really appreciate the comments that you made. I would remind people that if you have questions, you can enter them in the Q&A at any time and we're gonna come back to them at the end of the session. We are gonna move to the next, our next panelist who is gonna be Dr. Emma Connliffe. Now, Dr. Connliffe is a professor at the UBC Faculty of Law. And she's also, we have the great pleasure of having her here as a visiting professor at the Schulich School of Law. Dr. Connliffe studies how court decide the facts of contested cases. And she's particularly interested in expert evidence, the operation of implicit bias and the legal processes regarding gender than racialized violence, particularly those regarding indigenous people. Dr. Connliffe is a member of the Evidence-Based Forensic Initiative, which is based at the University of New South Wales. Dr. Connliffe is presently analyzing how facts are found in Canadian trials in inquests and commissions of inquiry that engage with gender than racialized violence. She's particularly investigating whether expert knowledge, such as forensic medicine, operates as a Trojan horse by which discriminatory knowledge and beliefs reinforce implicit and structural biases within the legal system. She's also studying examples of legal processes in which discriminatory beliefs are successfully countered. Her major work in progress is a monograph called Judging Experts. Dr. Connliffe's work is predicated on a careful analysis of trial transcripts and court records, such as expert reports. And she also compares experts' work in legal cases against the research-based fields such as forensic pathology. Dr. Connliffe regularly is invited to speak to judges, experts, lawyers, and government about the implications of her research. And presently, Dr. Connliffe is on secondment as the Director of Research and Policy at the Mass Casualty Commission. So very broad experience in research, in teaching, in policy. We are very lucky to have Dr. Connliffe here with us today. Emma. Thank you very much, Professor Kena. And thank you for inviting me to speak. It's always a real pleasure to talk to a group of students who are interested in criminal law and especially who are interested in finding ways to do criminal law differently, let alone to do it with a set of pro-panelists, all of whom are people that I really admire and whose work I follow. Professor Kena has given a good introduction to my sort of scholarly work. As she mentioned, my day job really is, I teach at UBC in the Faculty of Law and I teach criminal law and evidence. And my research really focuses on factual reasoning in complex criminal trials that involve the combination of questions about expert evidence and questions about discrimination and bias, particularly bias against women, indigenous people, people of color. And I think there's a couple of things I'd really like to echo from what Jennifer Cox shared with you. The first of which is that that's not something that I just jumped into straight out of law school. I think I had the impression when I was in law school that you kind of figure out what you want to do and you go for it. And that's what you do for the rest of your life. And perhaps that's true for some. It certainly wasn't true for me. When I graduated from law school, I spent a few years in a corporate firm interested in doing competition law or antitrust law, which feels like a lifetime ago now. And I joined the firm, I joined because it was a small family-friendly practice that had a really interesting pro bono program. And so that was trying to do corporate law a bit differently. And halfway through my other firm year, it merged with a really big sort of Bay Street firm and all of that went out of the window. And so that was a very early career lesson in lots of ways in how you can choose what was great and it can turn out to be something very different from what it looked like. And I learned a lot of skills from that experience. I think my early work doing competition law litigation taught me how to work with big factual records, which is a skill that I still use in my research and I'm using every day in my work as director of research and policy at the Mass Casualty Commission. It taught me how to be organized, taught me how to manage kind of multiple demands on my time, all of which are useful skills as an academic as well. But my heart wasn't in it. It wasn't why I'd gone to law school and it wasn't what I wanted to be doing with my day to day. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do instead. Like many of you, I'm sure I felt like I've sort of quite a long way down the law road. And I didn't think I wanted to abandon it entirely but I wasn't sure how it could look different. And so fortunately, and I thank my younger self for this, I decided, I scripted and saved enough money to go back and be my masters. And I decided to do my masters at UBC. You can probably hear from my accent, I'm Australian originally and I'd been practicing in Melbourne. I decided to go to UBC because when I was at law school, a lot of the most interesting articles we read and the most interesting scholarship and case law we were exposed to was Canadian and particularly songs that came from UBC. So I thought, just go and spend a year thinking about what I want to do next. And I'm very fortunate that having saved some money from my job, I was able to afford to do that. And that was a really important year for me because it opened my eyes to the possibility of a career in criminal law. And my master's thesis focused on the Dingo Baby wrongful conviction, which you may know from popular culture, but which has a whole lot of interesting depths beyond the Simpsons reference. And it sort of gave me a sense that some of the value of thinking about graduate studies in law is that it lets you think long and hard and deep about some of the issues that I've been bumping up against in practice, but I never had time to really get into. And so at the end of the year, my master's, I really knew that I'd found the thing I wanted to do. And so I went back and did my PhD and ended up working at UBC. But one of the things that maybe makes me a bit different from some academic colleagues is I also knew, and I knew even then, that I didn't want to just be an academic. I wanted to be what's sometimes called a policy-involved academic. I wanted to be part of conversations about injustice in the criminal law. And my research really does kind of work at the intersection of miscarriages of justice and feminism a lot of the time, which makes me a bit unusual. A lot of people who focus on wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice are not interested, particularly in a gender lens or in a critical race theory lens, both of which have room. But I wanted to be part of the conversations that were happening about a criminal cases review group, for example, to cite a current policy discussion. And so I sought out opportunities to partner with not-for-profits who might be intervening in cases that I had a scholarly interest in to appear before Parliament, to talk about policy issues that I was studying in order that I could keep up that relationship with a different kind of, I wouldn't say the practice of law, because I'm not admitted as a lawyer in Canada, but staying in touch with the practice of law might be one way to put it. And I think it was all of that that really probably led to the current secondment that I'm doing, the Director of Research and Policy at the Vast Casual Defirmation. And broadly speaking, how my job is a bit different from Jennifer Cox's on the day-to-day. In fact, there's a lot of similarity, I would say, Jen, I don't know if you agree with that. But I'm responsible for helping the commissioners put the events, the mass casualty that we're studying in the context of broader conversations around subjects such as other mass casualties that have happened and that sociological patterns we can identify in those. Our mandate directs us to consider the relationship between gender-based violence and intimate partner violence and mass casualties. Think about policy issues associated with access to firearms and so on. And so my work is to help to put a research and policy context around some of those conversations. And as I say, it's not necessarily the thing I anticipated when I left law school, I'd be doing, but it's very interesting and very rewarding work. And so if I could kind of leave you with one piece of advice, it's give yourself space to figure out what it is you really enjoy and thrive on. Seek out the people who are doing the work that you would like to do and talk to them about it and see if they can help you find your way and be open to new possibilities. But I'll hand it back to Professor Eftling. Thank you so much, Emma, for that. So we are going to be staying with that in the area of policy, but also again, at the bit of the intersection with litigation. And we're gonna move to our third panelist, which is Emma Hallepern, another graduate of our law school. We have a lot of great people that are alumni and they are doing working in criminal justice. Emma is a lawyer, an activist and an advocate who has worked extensively on behalf of vulnerable and marginalized people in Nova Scotia. And she's now the executive director and the director of legal services for the Elizabeth Frye Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, which is an organization that's dedicated to improving the lives of women, trans and non-binary people and by providing them with comprehensive housing supports, innovative program initiatives, just working in justice system reform and through fostering and developing personal empowerment. So Emma is able to share with you her experience both as an advocate and somebody who's working in policy as somebody who has been extensively engaged in non-governmental work. So, Emma. Thanks, thanks, Adelina. What an honor to be on this panel of pretty incredible people. So thanks very much. Bye, Jen. A lot of people I don't see very often too, so it's kind of cool to be here. So I think for me the best way to tell you about how I got to Brian now is actually to start before law school. I came to law school from New York City. I'm Canadian, I was originally from out west, but I've been working for a couple of years in New York and I was a community organizer when 9-11 happened in New York City. So it was a pretty wild time to be in New York at a time of incredible turmoil but also a time of pretty amazing and inspiring activism for those of you who would remember that time, of course there was a swelling of individuals stepping up against what ended up becoming the war in the Middle East. And so there was a ton of stuff happening at that time in New York, but I was working and living in a community in the South Bronx, which is a very marginalized community that got sort of forgotten in all of this. So what started to happen was all the funding that had been going into helping quite impoverished and struggling neighborhoods got moved out of those communities and into things like putting security on corners throughout the downtown core and sort of in reaction to what had happened at 9-11. And so this was my introduction, I think into social change work and into activism and into community organizing, which is what I was doing at the time. And so for those of you who know a bit about community activism, you're really, you're hitting the ground, you're working with people, you're trying to make policy change and government change but sort of from a very grassroots level. And I found after a couple of years in that work that I really wanted and needed more tools, more tools to be able to speak truth to power, to be able to fight for social change, to be able to fight against the injustices that I was seeing all around me in the community and in the world. So that was what prompted me to go to law school. And I was like, I'm sure there are some in your classes, one of those people who went to law school and said, I don't wanna be a lawyer, I just wanna do social justice activism work. And so, I went into that, coming from a community organization, doing work on the ground and funnily enough, 15 years later now, I'm back kind of in that space again. But kind of like Jen, I took up quite a roundabout route there and have had a number of different careers as I've made my way to where I am now, beginning with coming out of law school and into Nova Scotia legal aid. So I would agree for me personally, although I was sort of committed to the community sector and to social change work and that's very much where my heart is, it will always be in the work that I'm in right now, I was really happy to get the experience on the ground for a little bit to be in the system, to see what was happening in the courts, to experience some litigation, to be in that space was really valuable for me. And even though it wasn't the career path that I ultimately chose. I think from one of the things that I found challenging when I, you know, in the day-to-day when I was working with legal aid, which was a fantastic period of my life and career, but I found that I was always asking the question of like, I would have a client in my office and I always wanted to understand, how did this problem happen? How did this person arrive here to be in my office at this time? And how do I change that pattern or that path for them? And that was a big challenge for me and for those of you who are familiar with legal aid offices, you know, you might have 200 clients, you don't have a whole lot of time to be working on, you know, fixing the lives of the people that are coming in front of you and often you're sort of dealing with the things that are, you know, the matters that are going to court in that day. And so for me, I started to think about, well, what are the other avenues that I could start to do some of this work that was really about thinking about the changes in the system? And also by being in court, I had an opportunity to see a lot of the gaps, you know, our criminal justice system has a lot of problems, it still does. And it wasn't meeting a lot of the needs of the people that I was working with and on behalf of. And so, you know, I started to think about what were some of the change mechanisms that needed to happen within the justice system itself? And that actually brought me to a period of time working in access to justice and equity at the law society. So I spent eight years really in the system of the justice system, working for the Nova Scotia Barrister Society as the equity and access officer and trying to think about how we created more access for folks trying to access our justice system. In that time though, my heart has and continues to and has always been in the community sector. And so I was doing a lot of volunteering and that's how I first arrived with Elizabeth Frye Society. Kim, I'm sure will tell you about the many years that she was with Ephri and was, you know, certainly a mentor and a wonderful example of the type of work that could be done working in community organizations. And so I started as a volunteer and that's actually a theme and sort of a piece of advice that I would provide if you are looking for a sort of non-traditional career path in any way, get out there, volunteer, meet people, you know, follow your, it sounds so cheesy, but it really is, follow your heart. Start, don't feel that because that path isn't presented to you at, you know, a career development night that it doesn't exist. You can make those career paths for yourself. And in fact, some of the most rewarding careers come up because you, for folks who have tried different things, have, you know, explored different options and opportunities and kind of built something that really works for them. And so some, a piece of that for sure, at least for me was volunteering. And so I, you know, that started in fact in law school with Pro Bono Students Canada and I did a lot of volunteering about to know the community organizations while I was there. And then that stayed with me throughout my career. And so I started as a regional advocate, work doing prison monitoring work with EFRI, which was a volunteer role, and really be realized very quickly that this was an organization that met, that sort of checked all the boxes of what I was looking for. Did very important legal work, provided advocacy and systemic change work in spaces where often there was very little, with any access to justice, where folks were not having access to legal services. So, you know, legal aid was not providing services within prisons for prison law related activities. And so it was this kind of opportunity to use both my professional experience from working in nonprofits and social justice and social change work as a community organizer to kind of mix that with my legal background and my work, you know, my legal experience. And so I took on the role of executive director with EFRI Mainland in 2017. So it's been four years. And very, this was an exciting opportunity because it was an opportunity really to bring this social justice piece of work together with legal work. And so what that looked like was what is kind of called interdisciplinary practice. And so we have social workers who are doing a ton of work and support work and housing workers who are working and providing some wraparound services with legal services for folks who are highly vulnerable, highly marginalized and who are criminalized in our communities. The sort of final piece I'll say about that is that this was an area of law that was entirely unexplored. When I was going to law school, I never heard of prison law. It's awesome that we had, you have Professor Tenet now teaching prison law. I know that Kim has been there and done many intensive courses, but that didn't exist when I was at law school. And so it was really understanding this massive gap in service and recognizing that the only way that we could provide, that we could start to fill that gap and really only touching the tip of the iceberg and filling that gap. But the only way that we could really do that was to offer full service that was not just legal services and not just representing people at disciplinary hearings or judicial reviews or habeas corpus and we do some of that, but also doing advocacy work. So writing letters to folks like the correctional investigator, of which you will hear from where the current correctional investigator, the former one, we've been writing letters to them for some time. So that type of work was another way of using our legal skills and our legal tools was not just in a sort of formal litigation route, but also in terms of writing, advocating for the rights of the most vulnerable. And that could be by way of speaking to various levels of government, writing letters to various levels of government and meeting with senior officials, policy officials and so on in order to, again, press for change. So at the end of the day, I guess the last thing I would say is that the career that I am in today where we are doing legal work in prisons, where we are offering wraparound services and supports to extremely vulnerable and marginalized individuals didn't exist for me. I couldn't envision it when I was sitting in when I was graduating from law school. And yet because I sort of had this idea of where I wanted to go, what fed me the work that really mattered to me, I was always keeping my eyes open to it and looking and exploring opportunities that I felt to get me there. And that would be sometimes just calling someone up to have a copy who I thought was doing some interesting work or volunteering at an amazing organization or attending a meeting or attending a presentation and sort of building that path for myself. And so I would highly recommend that for those of you who are interested in this, I am just in Dartmouth across the water. So I actually saw a couple of names in the group of folks I know who are already volunteering with you, Frye, doing some cool stuff. So you're on that path and happy to keep supporting you as you go through your career path and as you start to figure out what your next steps are. I'll leave it at that. I think I've done my 12, 13 minutes and happy to answer questions there. Amazing. Thank you so much, Emma, for that and for extending the invitation to our students to reach out and talk to you and learn more about the work that if Frye is doing and that your career path. Now, moving on, there is a question for Emma in the Q&A box, but I'm gonna hold it until the end because others may be able to answer as well. And again, a reminder, feel free to add the questions there for the end of the talk. We're gonna move to Senator Kim Pate that many of you have known is also a very good friend of the law school and is certainly an alumn of the house. So as I said, all good people, many good people come from here. Kim was appointed to the Senate of Canada on November 10th, 2016. She first and foremost describes herself as the mother of Michael and Madison. She is a nationally renowned advocate who has spent the last 40 years working in and around the legal and penal systems in Canada with an on behalf of marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized individuals, particularly imprisoned youth men and women. Kim has this vast experience in advocacy, in policy work, in working with the government, working with NGOs, as Emma has mentioned, Kim has also been working with the the federations of Elizabeth Fry societies and has been there as well. And she is now in politics as a senator. So very broad experience in criminal justice. I should also say that our students also have the opportunity of interning with Senator Pate over summer. So I should keep an eye out on that. Okay, Kim. Great, thank you very much. And thank you for a generous introduction. And thank you for all the co-panelists, for all the incredible work you each do and collectively, individually and collectively. I'm pleased to join you from the shores of the Kichisipi in the unceded, unsurrended territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabek, otherwise known to many on Turtle Island as Ottawa. And, you know, first of all, I wanna say, I don't talk about working in the criminal justice system because there's not much just about it. I talk about the criminal legal system. And unlike probably others on the panel, I went to law school to make money. I did, I was a working class kid. I'm the first in my family to get a university education. My daughter a few months ago became the second. I was raised, my dad was in the enlisted ranks in the military. I was, I liked women. And I was, you know, I wouldn't have even known the language then to identify as lesbian, but definitely could not in a military environment of the 60s and 70s when I was growing up. And so when I came to law school, I had a clear plan that I was going there. I was going to, I had a backup plan to be a teacher. So I trained versus a teacher at UVic and then went to law school at Dow. And, but that all changed when I went to Dow Legal Aid. I was encouraged to do the clinic. I'd done all my coursework. I'd done an independent research project on the youth system because I thought that might be an up and coming area. I might want to do some law reform work in that area at some point. The government, I had been speaking to the Department of Justice about possibly working with them. I went to the Dow Legal Aid just as the Young Offenders Act was coming into force. And suddenly I was in an opportunity where most of my colleagues, the other folks in the clinic had not, didn't know what the youth, the new youth system was about. Many of the judges and lawyers that we're working with didn't. And suddenly I was on my feet representing young people. I also worked with the women who had come in who were working with some of the community legal workers who were in the clinic and started doing issues with women. And so I hadn't been caught up. I'd got a position with a law firm in Alberta and I was planning to do that. I'm probably not the best example to make if you're any of you are talking to your families or anybody who's funding your education if that's an issue for any of you. Because then I went to start at the law firm and I went from being on my feet every day arguing in my final term at law school to suddenly, and I should also say that I often was in trouble at law school because if I didn't like the line of reasoning in cases, I would write dissents. And that may be acceptable to many professors now. At that time, it was people took a dim view of it. So I often was trying to find ways to work around what the law was rather than to follow the law or follow what the precedents were. And that continued in the clinic. And so when I went to Calgary and started with the law firm, as many of you know, some of those articles can be not as exciting. And so I was writing legal memos and so I started volunteering to get some other opportunities to work with young people in the system. I had been fairly young when I went to school. I was 16 when I started university and I was 24 when I graduated law school. And so I thought I actually needed to get experience working with young people because I was so far removed. Look how that sounds ridiculous now at my age, but at the time I thought I'd work volunteer with young people and I'd do the work in the law firm. Two weeks into it, I gave my notice though and left after two months. I waited until they had someone to replace me. And I started doing a number of other volunteer activities, but also because I had the teaching degree, there were a group of organizations, including the John Howard Society and both the school boards in Calgary who were starting a literacy program for people coming out of prison. So I started working on that. That led to many other options. I was also doing street clinics for young people, for women, for people who were particularly in the indigenous community who were looking for ways to link up in terms of understanding what their rights were. And so basically was doing a lot of unwaged work that led to new opportunities. I started one of the first non, what was then referred to as a secular, it was non-religious based type of victim perpetrator type of mediation types of approaches that was now is often referred to as restorative justice or a diversionary. Started some of the first alternative measures and diversion programs for young people and then for men and into the adult system as well. And basically kept trying to find new ways to first, the first half of my career I described is trying to reform the system, improve it, change it. And so developing a number of initiatives helped sponsor a number of youth groups and advocacy groups and peer support groups, peer advocacy groups, both in Calgary and in Alberta as well as Canada and with some international links. And then the opportunity, I was actually encouraged by some folks I was working with at John Howard Canada to look at E-Fry. And so I was able to combine the issues that I've been working on in my unwaged work with waged work and started working with women in prison. I was shocked at how much the intersections, it's obvious to many of you now and especially to those of you have done the work, how the intersections of race and gender and class collide in horrific ways. And so I was shocked by what women were in prison for and also shocked by the lack of access people had to the institutions and the lack of knowledge that individuals who were imprisoned had. The law becomes characterized as a big magical instrument and certainly law schools dying out on the fact that you're supposed to need a law degree to understand what the law is. And I've spent a lot of time both in, I've had the opportunity to teach at DAL at in the intensive law program and a number of visiting places at Saskatchewan. I was there for 18 months also in Australia and in some spots in the US and have had great opportunities to be and to look at systems in different places. But one of the things that has always shocked me is how much we do, we don't work at making law more accessible. And so that became a big function of it. And Emma's already talked about the regional advocacy teams. That was something we developed because we wanted to have a team of people who could be accessible to the women most every team. I suspect it's probably so, but Emma will correct me if I'm wrong had someone who had legal training at least a couple of people who had their own lived experience of being criminalized and imprisoned. We were working on and it came to fruition not long before I went to the Senate to have women who were actually in prison as part of the advocacy teams because of course you come into, anybody who comes into the prison goes out again. We negotiated access to the entire, all of the prisons so that we could actually see the conditions of confinement and document them not just to rely on the only authority that usually documents that, which is corrections itself. I also had the privilege in coming to Ottawa being involved in a number of advisory bodies from the parliamentary budget office to the auditor general to a number of others to guest sessions and guest opportunities in various departments. Also had the opportunity to start doing work with training other professionals not just law and legal professionals but social workers, doctors, psychologists. And in all of those areas one of the things I found was vitally important was to really talk about the need to decolonize, decriminalize and decarcerate our thinking, our minds. And so I would characterize the last 20 years as really being about how do we actually do what a number of you have already spoken about and I suspect others will as well which is to stem the tide of those ending up in the system. And yesterday in your class Adelina I showed a chart that we've done of just what has happened as we've tried to make progressive trends to reform for instance the over-incarceration the mass incarceration of indigenous people indigenous women in particular. And when we started that initiative about 30 years ago women were about 10, 11% of the federal prison population they're now as Ivan has well documented almost 50%. And so every progressive attempt to remedy those situations has paradoxically resulted in those of us in the system feeling better about I'm being a bit facetious if it's not obvious about putting more people in the system because there are special circumstance courts there are indigenous programs all of those realities. And so really the reason when I was approached by a group of indigenous women who asked if they could put my name for the Senate about going to the Senate one of the things that was attractive was the ability to work on issues of longer term broader national interests like how do we rebuild or build some would say I certainly agree with that a strong economic social health safety net or net or rebound I think try to think of it as a trampoline where people who are temporarily not able to be supported in the community can rebound out of those situations. Oops, that's my timer telling me to shut up. So really in the Senate I've had an opportunity to work on private legislation. I try to in a principled way make sure those are issues the government has indicated they were going to work on but then have not picked up so things like mandatory minimum penalties things like record conviction expiry things like judicial oversight and remedies for prisoners when the law is not adhered to things like the human rights committee report on the rights of federally sentenced persons and continuing on to take senators into prisons I often joke can say not the way some people thought they might go but taking members of parliament, senators into prisons and encouraging the judiciary to also continue because for me, what Louis Arbor urged everybody a decade or more ago was that any of us who are working in and around the criminal legal system who don't know what the conditions of confinement are to which people will be subject if they are imprisoned have no business whether it's policing whether it's prosecuting whether it's defending or whether it's being a judge or whether it's making the laws as a member of parliament or senator so that's really been vitally important and I would absolutely underscore what Emma said in terms of both Emma's but Emma Halpern said in terms of volunteering many of the opportunities that have arisen have come and suddenly someone says have you thought about this would you like to take this opportunity and ultimately it's great to have a plan but I encourage you all if you have a passion for something usually if you have a passion it's about something you do well and if you do it well you that passion continues to grow and encourage and many people will often say do you never feel burnt out and every day that I have the privilege opportunity and responsibility to walk with folks who have lived experiences sometimes similar and sometimes very dissimilar to mine it's a huge opportunity and huge responsibility and is enthuses and really is what encourages me to keep doing this work every day and I encourage all of you you're the leaders you're coming you're already leading many of you and you will continue to lead and so I hope you keep in touch and I look forward to following your careers Thank you so much, Kim always such a pleasure to hear from you Moving on to another Shulik Law alum we're having Cherry Spain speaking who is the lawyer and the public servant so we are moving into the more governmental side of the work she's currently holds the role of manager special initiatives for victims with the Nova Scotia Department of Justice Victim Services Division but Cherry has an undergraduate degree from Delhausi and JD from Delhausi's Shulik School of Law she practiced law for seven years in the area as a family and criminal law with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice and then with Nova Scotia Legal Aid in her role as manager of special initiatives Cherry's works collaboratively to develop innovative initiatives to increase access to justice for survivors of violence in Nova Scotia her work specifically focuses on intimate partner violence and sexualized violence Cherry's work centers trauma-informed and intersectional approaches to understanding and responding to violence in order to meaningfully serve survivors recognizing the intergenerational, historical and systemic nature of trauma and violence and how this impacts the experiences and needs of survivors of violence Cherry, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you and thank you so much for inviting me it's been amazing to hear everybody speak this evening. So similar to Emma I believe in order to be able to tell you how I arrived here really starts prior to law school. I'm an African Nova Scotian woman who was raised here in Nova Scotia and I started my professional career before law school working as an executive director of a youth and community development organization that dealt with tutoring programs afterschool programs, breakfast and lunch programs in underserved communities. And while there, I asked myself a similar question how did many of the youth who were dealing with significant complexities in their life how did they arrive, where they arrived? And that's what led me to law school a constant fascination with the intersections of violence and justice both institutionally as intersections of violence and justice and interpersonally. And so I went to law school because I thought that the law held some of those keys as to how we as the collective we and individuals who find themselves at the mercy of our legal system find themselves in these places. And so I kind of just fell into some experiences after law school, also agreeing with Jennifer that I think it is important to practice. And one of the things that was important to me was to practice and I told myself I practiced for five years I ended up doing it for seven. And I always had a goal to transition into policy and program and service delivery type of work. So I started my articles with the Nova Scotia Department of Justice where I had varied experience and I asked anyone who any lawyer that would give me an opportunity to learn something to be in a courtroom to take a file to represent a client to write a memorandum or a factum I took that opportunity from many different types of practice areas there. And I got the opportunity to do some child protection litigation which allowed me to be in court. I also completed a secondment with the Public Prosecution Service during my articles which also allowed me to be in court and see those intersections of justice and violence play out. And then after I finished my articles I moved on to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice where I worked in its child protection practice group. After that I moved on to Nova Scotia Legal Aid where I did a lot of child protection work representing parents did work in therapeutic courts such as domestic violence court. I transitioned into my current role as Manager of Special Initiatives in July of 2020. And as was already stated, a major focus of that work is on intimate partner violence and sexualized violence. And so while I was practicing it was funny how constantly those intersections from my prior to going to law school between violence and justice kept coming to the fore. Many of the clients that I represented in family litigation had their situations exacerbated due to violence. And a huge part of my role as an advocate in a courtroom was to try and help a survivor be able to rebuild the pieces of their life, gain security and economic independence after experiencing sometimes many years of violence from someone who caused them harm. And being and trying to find ways to craft for the court to help them apprehend and understand how to balance the safety of survivors and children against the rights of the person who caused harm. How do you weigh those two things? And sometimes I was very difficult in a court of law. And again, led me to kind of find a bit of frustration feeling like working in that micro level every day with clients. How do I help them improve the circumstances in the situations of their lives? That led me to understanding and practicing trauma-informed lawyering, which really helped me in the work that I undertake now. And it wasn't common for lawyers to practice in family law in particular. And so I moved on to the Department of Justice, as I said, in July of 2020, looking at things from a more macro level, right? Why are there certain barriers to survivors and victims being able to achieve access to justice, to achieve greater justice outcomes? And what ways are we thinking in limited perspectives as to how we can give meaningful representation to the needs of survivors? And a lot of that comes down to, for me, again, a deepening, always a deepening of understanding violence and justice, right? Understanding intergenerational trauma, understanding that people show up already having been harmed by the systems that purport to serve them, right? Many times victims are retraumatized by having to testify in court, by individuals and system players that don't necessarily understand their unique needs and what they have gone through. Because our system, as it's currently configured, doesn't necessarily have room for the voices and experiences and needs of victims. And so a lot of what I do is helping systems to understand how are we trauma-informed and how can we do no further harm? And how can we look at our policies and our procedures and the ways that we carry out justice that is causing further harm? How do we restructure and reimagine the ways in which we do our work? For instance, we've been in a time where what was considered innovative were victim impact statements and testimonial aids. They were innovative for that time, but we are moving into a time where we have to have a deeper understanding of trauma, of violence, and how our systems play that out in the lives of survivors and have to develop greater responses to be able to deal with that. Some of the work that I do tangibly is I manage a roster of lawyers who provide independent legal advice to adult survivors of sexual assault. And while that program is intended to give further information on civil and criminal processes to survivors in an effort to increase reporting, there's still more work that needs to be done. So a huge part of my responsibility is educating lawyers in that program on how to be trauma-informed. How do you argue cases from a trauma-informed perspective? How do you elevate a judge's understanding by bringing a different argument? When do you object to certain lines of questioning? Right? And so currently I'm in development of an educational program and curriculum that will help bring more of that information, understanding to lawyers, which we hope to provide more extensively throughout the province, but ultimately that's the work that I do in a nutshell. I would also agree with the other panelists here tonight that you need to follow your passion, your passion and your talents. Do as many things as you can until you figure out what you're really good at and then find out what you're really good at and what you really like and try to combine those things. And your journey never ends. Everything is all about learning, right? If you follow your passion, you will find yourself in different places throughout your career that sometimes you might be a system actor. The next time you might be working in community, but as long as you find your passion and you follow that, you will create a career and build a career that you're proud of and one that will definitely be the sky's the limit for you. So thank you. Thank you so much, Cheris. That was actually so inspirational for me. I hope that it was for our students as well. Thank you again. And last but not least, staying within the area of the public surveys and government, we have Dr. Ivan Zinger who is currently the correctional investigator of Canada. He has received his common law degree from the University of Ottawa and has completed his articles with the federal court of Canada. He has obtained his PhD from Carleton University in psychology of criminal conduct. He also teaches as an adjunct professor with the law department at Carleton. Dr. Zinger joined the public service of Canada in 1996. He held a variety of senior managerial policy and research positions in public safety related federal departments and agencies. In 2004, he joined his current employer, the office of the correctional investigator, which is for those of you who don't know is like a federal prison ombudsman office. The correctional investigator is the ombudsman person that monitors the federal office. That monitors the federal correctional system and conditions of confinement. And in 2009, Ivan became the executive director and general counsel. As of January 1st to 2017, Dr. Zinger was appointed as correctional investigator of Canada pursuant to section 161 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Ivan, thank you so much for being here with us tonight. Thank you, Adelina. It's a pleasure to be here and to have an opportunity to actually talk to students about career plans and career paths. I'm gonna try to go a little further back than when I completed my law school at Ottawa U. I'm gonna start with childhood. Let's start there. I have very little recollection of, for example, when I was four, five, or six years old and I don't remember, you know, I have no recollection of whether at that time I wanted to be a firefighter, a police officer or doctor or maybe even a soldier. But there's one thing for sure that I know is that I certainly didn't dream about becoming the correctional investigator of Canada. Most of my career feels that was filled with great opportunity. I feel sometimes a little bit like Forrest Gump that go through time and then there's all these wonderful things that happen to him. And I can tell you, I wasn't very good at school, elementary or high school. And when it came to university, my choices were limited because of my poor grades. So I actually was only accepted in two university with open door policy at the time. I don't think those exist anymore, the policy. So I was accepted at University of Québec Montréal de Lycouin and Carleton University. I was not, my English was not very good but I thought that it would be a good, it would be a best option to try to stay away from Montreal and the bad influences of Montreal and try to come to Ottawa and make my mark there. So I started with at Carleton in a sort of, I think it was a bit of, it was a psychology with a bit of a criminal justice and a bit of law. And I sort of found my way. I started really enjoying anything dealing with the criminal justice. I found that it was fascinating. So I initially actually volunteer for John Howard Society, which gave me some summer job even with the Ottawa police at the time. And then further on gave me an opportunity to work with Young Offender phase one. So those that are 12 to 15 and secure custody. I've also worked in halfway houses and so on. So I really thrive on the, on criminal justice issue. I find it fascinating. And I really sort of wanted to continue to pursue that. I was a bit of a slow learner because I stayed in university a little too long. I actually ended up spending 13 years. So any of you that wants to follow my career path is probably would be turned off by that. I, if I would actually, if I knew that I was going to spend 13 years when I started, I would have probably gave up right away. So I sort of fell in love with psychology or criminal conduct. And at the end of my BA, honors BA, I wanted to actually go into, to do a PhD, a clinical PhD in psychology or criminal conduct and actually applied. So there's a couple of programs where you can go straight from a four year BA into a clinical degree PhD that would last at least six years. And I was accepted, but no one picked up my file to supervise me. So I was disappointed. So I did what I always do throughout my career is that I try to open various doors and see what's the best option. So I was accepted for, I think, master in social work, master in psychology. And I was persuaded by my late wife at the time to actually apply to law school. And I looked at the opportunities and I sort of said, okay, well, you know, I will try law school for at least a year and see if I like it. And I started law school and I have to tell you that initially I certainly didn't like it. I liked social science. I liked sort of very much social justice issues. And 25 years ago, I can tell you that there were not that many people in law faculties that had similar background. Most of my colleagues were driven to go into corporate law and were looking at private law firms and so on. So I didn't like it very much. And I actually applied again for that same PhD in psychology, clinical psychology. And again, I got through the first stage of admission, but no one picked up my files. There were only a couple of people doing forensic psychology at the time and they already had their hands full with previous students. So I decided again, because I knocked at a few doors, nothing open, I will do the best. So like that I never have any regrets in life. I'll finish it. So I did finish it, finish law school and it got better. And I sort of figure out, I think the first year is always difficult as many of you know, and then eventually you find your groove and I was able to make my way. So I finished law school, applied everywhere, got in the federal court, that was great. Finished that, did the bar, that was okay. And then when I graduated, I knew that I didn't want to do, to be a traditional lawyer. I don't know, I just, it wasn't something I wanted to do. I wanted to basically work for the public sector, not the private sector. I didn't wanna count my hours or minutes, you know, available hours and so on. So the market, there was a hiring freeze in government. I was really down not knowing what to do. And I sort of said, you know what? I'm gonna pursue my academic dream of doing a PhD. And this time I just went and I went to see my former thesis advisor when I was at, Carlton undergraduate and I say, if I do apply, will you pick up my file? And can I do my PhD with you? And he said yes. So I did apply and I started part-time my PhD to, you know, which I wanted to do for so long in psychology or criminal conduct. So after that, I guess I did some contract work to finance my PhD. So I did research contracts with Solicitor General on dangerous offenders. I did some with the Department of Justice, also on long-term offenders as well as dangerous offenders. And what I did is that a lot of that work, I could actually use against my PhD. So that was great. And eventually I finished all the course requirement. And at that time I had no thesis topic and all the course requirements were done. I did my comprehensive exam on psychopathy. So that was done. And my thesis advisor said, why don't you meet with a former student of mine? His name was Larry Mochuk. He's the head of research at Correctional Service of Canada. And maybe he can find something for you to do your thesis on. So I did. Larry is still with Correctional Service of Canada. He's now the assistant commissioner for policy and research. And I arrived there in 1996, just a couple of months after Madame Justice, Louise Arbour tabled her amazing report on prison for women. And it was a land of opportunities for me because I was brand new lawyer with some, clearly some interest in research. And they tasked me with, despite the fact that I was in research, they tasked me to put together the legal training for senior managers in response to recommendations from Madame Justice Arbour. So I hired a couple of law students and we developed the legal education module in response to Arbour recommendations. After that, they asked me to be part of a, to actually do a bit of a research for the task force on administrative segregation. And the next thing I know, I was asked to be part of the task force and I would be able to do my PhD research on administrative segregation or the psychological impacts of administrative segregation. Then as I was doing that, I was also asked by the commissioner corrections to be part of a working group on human rights. That was a chair by the former commissioner, a chief commissioner of the Canadian Rights Commission, Maxwell Yaldon. And he wanted somebody who could write and who hadn't been, as he said, hadn't been absorbed by the culture of correctional service of Canada. So the commissioner asked me to sit on that working group. And this is where I really cut my teeth on the sort of learned the ropes on domestic and international human rights standards as it pertained to prisoners. So again, nothing was planned. I then I did finished a PhD and then I decided to move on. I was hired by solicitor general at the time as a senior advisor. Then I moved to the Department of Justice. I wanted to get some managerial sort of experience. So I became the principal researcher for criminal law policy. So I was in research at justice supporting the policy sector for criminal law. Rick Mosley, who's a judge by now was the assistant deputy minister at the time responsible. And after that, I was brought back to solicitor general that turn into the department of public safety and emergency preparedness as the director. So finally, I had a managerial position, director of strategic policy. And I was responsible for a lot of things including provincial, territorial, federal, FPT, federal, provincial and territorial meetings of ministers or deputy ministers responsible for justice and public safety. So it was really high level stuff and it was a great exposure for me. And then finally, because of personal situation, I decided that I could not no longer work in a big department giving the kinds of hours that I was required to do. So I approached Howard Sapers who was the just brand new correctional investigator of Canada in that small little shop that at the time I think we were about 25, we're up to 40 now employees. And then I worked for him for a dozen years in various capacity and then eventually when he left I took over the top job. So again, in terms of my own career, I think I feel excessively blessed by having had the chance to make a contribution through the public service. And I'm one of the maybe rare, maybe a little bit rare individuals that work for the public service that is excessively happy with how I was treated and all the opportunities that I had. I've done a fair amount of international work as well throughout my career. So in terms of reflecting, I'm just about over the time limit now. I would just say that drive for always for excellence in everything that you do. I think when I look back at my career, I think this multidisciplinary approach is the way that I distinguish myself from the rest of law students and employees at the public service because I had that combination. So if you want to distinguish yourself, I think disciplinary studies is the way to go. And I've also was interested in management. So this is one way that you can apply, as I say, law was never an end for me. It was more like a tool to achieve that end and to be in a position where I could hopefully contribute to social justice. And law was just absolutely fundamental to my ability to see the world and advance an advocate for those that are less fortunate than us. So I'll leave it to that. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ivan. That was actually such a treat here in your whole career path. I did not know any of those. Thank you for being here with us tonight and I'm going to, as we have a few minutes left, I'm going to go over the couple of questions that we have in the Q&A. If people have any other questions, feel free to sort of add them. It's really such a wonderful privilege to be able to hear about your career, so all of your careers and to hear about all of these incredible paths that are very different, but there are certainly a lot of common themes among that. And I love Ivan's idea of law as a tool as opposed to as an end. And I think that hearing about the work that you do and knowing the work that you do, I think that that's something that probably applies to all of you as the way you use law as a tool to try to work for better outcomes for the people that you work with and to advocate through the various ways. And I think that the themes that we've seen developing and that I think the students can also sort of reflect on or try to think on how they can approach them in their own path, relate to this idea of volunteering, trying different things, trying to find out what your passions are, networking with people, reaching out to people, trying to not settle, trying to do what you think you'd like to do and persevering until you love that. And ultimately, the idea that I think that all of you have reached that thing, that passion has materialized in the work that you do and have done such significant contributions to the public well-being and you have served the communities in such an art-serving the communities in such incredible ways. So we thank you for that. We thank you for taking the time to talk to us. And I'm going to start with a couple of, one of the questions I think that somebody's asking. And I think that everybody in the audience would is admiring your careers and the work that you're doing. Of course, the concern on everyone's mind would be what are we doing considering? We do want to do this. We want to pursue a largely volunteer social justice sectors out of law school. But what would be your advice for somebody who's graduating with $90,000 in debt? How do I am able to navigate through that and still do the things that I like to do? I'm going to ask Tim, I know Kim has to leave soon. So I'm going to let Kim answer that first and then see what others have to say. Kim, I think you may need to unmute yourself. I'm sorry to interrupt. Yes, thank you. Famous. Yeah, and I'm very sorry that I have to leave to go to another class that I agreed to speak at after this and with, so it's actually part of the reason that I talked about. Well, first I want to say, of course I'm in a very privileged position now. I have resources, I have salary, I have benefits. But when I was choosing, quote unquote, to take, to work in the nonprofit sector, a big challenge was as a single mom, how I was going to afford to raise my kids in that environment. And so I often say jokingly, but it's true that being raised in the context in which I was without much in terms of financial resources, it set me up very well to work in a sector that isn't well resourced at large. Do I think it should be? Absolutely. Am I working to try and change that now in the context? Absolutely. So many times I would actually volunteer as I was going through whether it was training or law school, before law school, after law school, if I wanted to get certain experiences, I've worked in a wide array of areas and I won't bore you with all the details. But in each of those initiatives, I would basically start out and go to an organization or an individual or a group or a coalition that I wanted to work with and say, look, I really think I can learn a lot. I think I can contribute. How about if I work for free for, when I was trying to get a job as a dental assistant, I worked for half a day free when I wanted to work with a coalition doing work with kids on the street, I worked for a week free and basically tried to get some of that experience that way. I also did things like go without a car for a while. I red circled my salary when I was with the National Office of E-Fry up until I was getting ready to leave. I was planning to leave just to try and generate new energy in the organization before the Senate thing happened. But before that, I red circled my salary so that we could always hire someone coming out of prison, preferably someone serving a life sentence or a long sentence so that they could move into the position. And so that then led to creative thinking about other people I was working with said, why don't you start teaching? So I did some fellowships and was able to resource in those ways. So I think often it's the creativity of linking up and working in collaboration with others. It's also that kind of collaboration that led me to end up working with some amazing lawyers who I was their client because they wanted to work on the issues we were. And so link to the last question about how do you fight for these issues? I think I always say, know what your theory of your case is. So that's why I said, decarcerate, decriminalize those sorts of big-term objectives. When we went into the Arbor Commission, we had a clear interest in not just trying to fix a few things, but looking at things like how do you have real meaningful oversight? What do you do about a skewed, racist, gender-biased classification system? And so some of the recommendations that come out of these can be very much shaped by the input you provide and who you choose to represent you when you're doing that. It's also how I ended up getting, you know, my fourth degree was a postgraduate in forensic mental health because I wanted to be able to help shape that thinking as well. So I think there are creative ways to do it and if anybody wants to be in touch, you're more than welcome to email or call us and it's always easy to find as our senators, our Kim, our names, first name, last name, at sen.parle.gc.ca. So feel free to be in touch if there's anything further that I can assist with. And thank you very much, Adelina, for organizing this and thank you to all of you and everybody for all the incredible work you do. Thank you so much, Kim, for that. It was a lovely having you here tonight. I don't know if anybody else wants to add any ideas in terms of this conundrum of trying to follow your passion and do social justice work. And I'm gonna throw another question in here that somebody is asking because I think it's somewhat linked to it. And they said, many of you mentioned the value of the skills you gain from corporate law opportunities. And of course, this is somewhat linked to the idea that a lot of the money to pay the debt may come from there. Is there any advice from somebody who really does not want to do any big firm kind of work and just wants to stick with social justice work? Is really any kind of big firm necessary for those skills and are there any other avenues? So that linked with the money part is a question and I'm gonna have Jennifer answer that first. So with respect to opportunities that are salaried and decent salaries, there's lots of opportunities now within the legal aid system in Nova Scotia. And I'm gonna suggest that probably in other parts of Canada as well. So because we have the specialized courts, therapeutic courts as they're called, we have social justice initiatives. There is a specific employment opportunity with Nova Scotia legal aid, for example. And those are reasonably well salaried positions, basically the standard of what you could expect in the practice of law. So I would say to those who are interested in this area, one of the places that you should be looking is to Nova Scotia legal aid in particular or two firms that maybe do some of this work because there is particular firms who do like certificate worker who have some opportunities to sort of liaise with that. The other thing is, is that you can certainly do crown work. So a lot of the victims of crime and those people that you all, those are people that the crown works with. And it's just because you're the crown doesn't mean you can't learn and advocate for change. You can be a trauma-informed crown prosecutor. You can find ways to change the system from within. So you don't necessarily have to find a corporate opportunity to find a good, especially those first few years. I mean, really at the end of the day, you make more money as a private lawyer, typically anyway, I wasn't one of them. In those later years, anyway, those first few years, you tend to actually make more money as a salaried employee, either with Nova Scotia legal aid or one of the institutions. So it's not as hard as you might think it is to find a decent salary to pay that student loan. So I guess it's not a one-size-to-all answer, but there's always opportunities if you're looking in the right places. How's that? Thank you, Jennifer. I'm gonna have Emma Connliffe now and then the other Emma and then Charice. Thank you, Adelina. I was listening to your notes and go to the hands. I just hit it, Adelina from the chat and said I could talk a little bit to both questions. So the question that was asked about corporate law and the skills you get from corporate law, you can get the same skill set, working for Nova Scotia legal aid, working for E-FRI, working for victim services. And so please don't think that there's something special about corporate law in that sense, there actually really isn't. And I think that's a lot of the mistake that corporate law sometimes pushes on law students and it's false. Having worked in a number of different settings, I can tell you there's, I value the experience I had because that's where I got it. It's not the only place to get it. So I thought I should probably speak directly to that and having raised the issue. To the question of graduating with debt and how that might constrain your choices, I was in that position and that is why I went to corporate law because from my vantage as a possibly somewhat naive kind of law student that seemed to be the path to financial security. It's not the only path and I endorse entirely what Jennifer said and I think one of the things that I noticed from my BC vantage, talking to a Nova Scotia audience is take a kind of cost of living when you're thinking about salaries as well. And so looking to smaller centers, looking to opportunities where you might be being paid similar amounts of money, but the cost of living is going to be less is one way to make sure that you can have a decent lifestyle without needing to go to Toronto and work on Bay Street. But the second thing, the reason why I emphasized the idea that the first thing you do out of law school doesn't have to be the last thing you do in your legal career is because it may be necessary for you to take a job that wouldn't be your first pick because you can't afford to take the one you really wanna do. And if that's the case, that's okay. It's okay. If that's what it looks like, learn what you can from that experience and commit to yourself to making the time to, for example, volunteer with an agency that is providing the kind of work that you might wanna eventually be able to find a way to make the living doing, make those connections and see if you can get the debt paid down a little bit, maybe get through the early years of your kid's life if that's part of the story and keep kind of putting, keep your kind of one awe in the work that you really wanna end up doing. If that's the financial necessity for you, there is no problem with that. It doesn't make you less committed or less passionate to the work. It actually keeps you in the pool and so do what you need to do to get to what you need to do. Thank you so much, Emma. The other Emma. Hey, so I'll answer those questions but then also try to answer. I think there was one that was specifically directed to me so I will certainly try to get to that one. That's great, that would be great. If you could do that for me. So in terms of, I'm gonna answer this like the most terrible answer in the world but I'm gonna say it anyway which is that like some of it sort of depends on how comfortable you are with living with debt. I also graduated with a massive, massive debt and just sort of heated up really slowly for many, many, many years. Didn't like cripple my life. I think it took me almost 16 years to pay off my student debt. But you know, I still had a great life while I was living, it just comes out of your bank account. You don't even really notice that as long as you can at least get that minimum payment. Terrible advice, your parents will kill me. But seriously, for me it wasn't worth it to sacrifice what I wanted to do in order to get that big debt paid off quickly. And I know that for some people that weighs on them heavily and like they can't just live their life comfortably with that debt at the back of their mind. And for those people there, then take some of those other jobs that maybe get you a bit more pay and get that debt paid off and then take, you know, do volunteer work on the side or move to another career after you've made a bit more money. Like the options are endless. I think that's the main point and it is so individual. So for me, the debt didn't bother me that much paying it off slowly. Whereas, you know, I really wanted to do work that I had to write off of that. Like I just couldn't go and do work that I am just one of those people who just kind of had to follow my heart from day one for the most part. And to Jennifer's comments, the only pays perfectly fine. Like maybe you're not gonna be on a trajectory to make, you know, half a million dollars a year in 10 years, but you are still gonna be making one of the, you know, some of the better salaries of any Canadian out there. And so, you know, there's lots of jobs that even, you know, I have an articling job that I, you know, add a non-profit like I have a staff articling position and we pay a decent salary. I can guarantee it's probably not quite as high as some of the big firms, but it's not terrible. So I think this, it's a little bit, in my view anyway, a myth that sort of you have to sort of literally live the life of a pauper if you wanna do social justice work. I think you can live a decent life. You're just maybe won't have a yacht by the time you're 45 or 50, you know? And to write frankly, there are certain jobs in law where that's a possibility and that, but this, but working in non-profits not gonna do it for you. So to the question though of volunteering, I would say, and it was sort of for someone who doesn't have a network that is maybe a little bit more intimidated, I think was the question around kind of putting yourself out there. I would say that this is, it's incredibly valuable experience to just put yourself out there, you know, give someone, cold call someone to say I'm really interested in the work you do. I'd love to just grab a coffee. People do this with me all the time and I benefit from it. I love meeting students for coffee and talking about the work they're interested in, their careers, it's wonderful and it's really rewarding. I get, you know, I can tell you without question and I know some of the participants on here are my pro bono students. We couldn't do anything, any of the work we did without student volunteers. That's the core offering that we offer is a great group of brilliant students year after year who do fantastic work and it is an amazing way to give back. Also, I can tell you from what I've heard from other students it's some of the best experience they get in law school because it's so hands-on and you're working on real files, real people's lives, real work. And if you really feel intimidated to put yourself out there, I highly recommend Pro Bono Students Canada. They'll place you for you. So just put your name in the box and they'll find a placement for you. I've also had professors refer people to me. So go talk to one of your professors about your interests. They may know some community organizations and I'm not saying 20 hours a week. You just get yourself out there a little bit here and there and you'll have that exposure to the way in which law impacts the lives of the people in our communities and that is so tremendously valuable. And then the final thing I would say is do the clinical work. If you don't have time at all, some people are working, have children, all that, I get that. Then take some of the clinical courses like Life the Crime Clinic or Deli Delay Clinic because that also gets you that exposure and out there and meeting people and have that kind of opportunity. That's amazing. Thank you, Emma. Cheris. Yeah, just to add and hit home some of the points that other people made on the call. So it did bother me having that right out of law school which is why I went to Saskatchewan's. Why I left the Department of Justice Nova Scotia and went to Saskatchewan and I was able to pay my debt, right? Now I wasn't living in a remote area in Saskatchewan. I was living in Regina, but it was still very cold, right? And I lasted maybe two and a half years, right? But it was a choice I made because I knew that I needed to get that debt for me to a manageable place, right? And so everybody makes choices based off cost-benefit analysis and what the configuration of their life is but there are options. And while I was in Saskatchewan what I wasn't prepared to realize is what Jennifer said, I was a crown in terms of I was working for the Ministry of Justice representing them on child protection matters. And I had so much power, right? Because I was the filter through which that evidence went to the court, right? And if the social worker providing me with the affidavit information did not justify the interventions that she was taking in a way that I felt as an officer of the court I was prepared to advocate for, I did not. And so I wasn't always liked initially, you know? But I developed a reputation of somebody where you knew you had to show your work and you had to justify and that power made it easier to be able to be in a very cool place for two and a half years and learn a lot. Also, you don't know what you're going to be exposed to. I had an opportunity while I was in Saskatchewan to take part in the legislative review of the child and family, I'm forgetting it now but you know what I mean? The Child and Family Act out of my head now. But I had a chance to participate in a review of that as a practitioner, as somebody who was in the court every day. And my comments mattered, right? My view of things mattered and that was an opportunity for me to engage in activism and social justice, particularly thinking about the fact that we were dealing with huge indigenous populations in Saskatchewan who have been dealt with unfairly and continue to be dealt with unfairly. So always remember that as an officer of the court, there is a level of power that you have and you can always choose to practice in a way that is in alignment with your values. Then the other thing is, as you go, I've only practiced for about seven years, right? As you go along, you will be able to make choices where money is not the paramount consideration in what you decide to do. It will happen. It doesn't always feel like it will happen, but it will happen, right? And as you build skills, I would advocate for anybody to do this and encourage anybody to do this. Start to try to find ways to make money for yourself. What skills do you have? Can you consult, what can you do? What can you offer an organization, right? In terms of skills that can develop you, give you some additional money, and you'll be able to leverage that into perhaps a business for yourself at some point. So just things to think about. That's excellent. Thank you so much, Cheris. I don't know, Ivan, if you want to add anything to this. Yeah, the landscape changed so much. Law school used to be 25 years ago was the same price as going in any other faculty. My daughter just finished law school and I guess her tuition was a little over $20,000 a year. And so it's a very different landscape than when I went through. So I was very much a bit of an entrepreneur and it was clear to me that I did not want to accumulate any debt while I was studying for 13 years and I succeeded, but I was working basically either part-time or full-time during the whole time. And I don't think that's possible anymore. So I feel bad for the way society is gone by making law schools more exclusive to get in and having so many people that are dedicated that get the marks to leave law school with significant debts that can feel certainly at the beginning overwhelming. But I think a lot of degree is a wonderful opportunities and it can open lots of doors. And as the other speakers have said, do what you have to do. It's if you're passionate about social justice but where you wanna be doesn't really pay very much, then you'll cut your teeth and do something else that do pay and then eventually you can later in your career give back by dedicating more of your practice or your entire time to social justice issue and advance things. So I think it's just a question of timing sometimes. But as I say, I feel bad that law schools have become what they've become, which is certainly much more sort of they, it takes quite a bit of money and lots of people have lots of money in law school because it's more affluent families that can support their kids to go to law school. So that's just unfortunate. Thank you very much, Ivan. We are significantly over time, but maybe we're gonna end on this note. I think it's a really interesting last question where it's moving from how you get there and moving from the debt and the money. About the substance. So somebody says that this fight for social justice can be very motivating. However, there is also a lot of disappointment in it and how do you manage the disappointment and not feeling like the cause is lost when policy and law fails to keep up with what must change. So how do you, I think it's a really good way of ending. It's so obvious what are the benefits and the aims of the work that you're doing, but how do you manage the disappointment when you feel that you spend 20 years and your resistance still? Jennifer. I hire a lot, lots of tears, lots and lots of tears. Jennifer, that, thanks Emma, you're such a bright light there. For me, I just didn't let go of it. I like so, although there's disappointment and you get frustrated and there's lots of hoops you have to jump through, the changes in the legislation here in Nova Scotia are primarily as a result of my tenacity to sort of stay at it. So the opportunity presented itself and I took, seized the moment. So I think that's the thing that you have to be mindful of is that it may not come at the time you expect it, but it'll never be for naught. You'll have that opportunity and just do the work to prepare so that you're ready when the opportunity presents itself. Thank you, Emma, come live. Yeah, it's funny how we all winced at this question. I think that's because we've all lived it. Don't accept the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth loss or knockback. Do actually read and study the careers of people who've made really significant change and you'll see that they didn't accept the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth knockback. They kept coming back and kept chipping away and it is a skill, I think, for me. The place where my head went immediately was the case I wrote my PhD about, which I argued a woman had been wrongly convicted. She's still in prison in Australia, but the most recent development in her case is last year 90 scientists, including three Nobel Prize winners, signed a petition saying that she'd been wrongly convicted and I could never have imagined when I was sitting in my bedroom writing my PhD that it would get that sort of attention but I'm also acutely conscious. She's still in jail. And so the swings are crazy when you do this work. And the best advice I can give is surround yourself with people who care just as deeply about what you're trying to achieve as you do and do the best work you can with the people who are your allies in that work because they're the ones who get you through the tough times and who help you get back up on your feet and do it again. But that is the nature of this work. And I think that a lot of times it feels when you're doing the work that nothing is changing but I think when looking from the outside in, I think that the importance of that work and the things that, for instance, even just these people in the panel have achieved looks very different from the society's point and from the point of view of people outside while when you're doing the work it might not feel like you're getting where you want to do. So it's also a difference between the subjective perception and the reality of the importance of what has been achieved, right? Charis. I would just say the thing that's helped me most is the resilience of the people that I have had the privilege of helping. They are resilient, right? And in the face of that, you just don't give up. When I worked for Legal Aid, I was in Cape Breton, right? Beautiful, I loved the experience there. One of the things I loved about it is that when I went to the grocery store, I would see my clients and they would stop me and show me pictures of their children and how they're doing, right? And let me know that they've got a job or some other significant milestone in their life. And that definitely helped me get back up every day and go and do this work because people are resilient. Thank you, Charis. Emma, you wanted to develop on your crying. Although I'm joking, there is some reality to that, which is that it is okay to feel all of those complex feelings that you will feel when you are often up against a wall. And I would say I have this conversation with my staff team almost every day about what you need to do to dig deep and keep going and appreciate the small steps that get made even when you feel like you've just been pushed back. Another major step and every step forward gets us a little bit further along in the journey. I often talk about chipping away at the wall, but eventually those chips do make a full hole in the system and the systems that have, quite frankly, oppressed and harmed so many people that we are up against all the time. And I agree with what the other Emma said, which is surrounding yourself with people who support you, people you can talk to you about it, feel it, allowing yourself to cry sometimes, to be angry sometimes, and then to get back up the next day and keep going because it is, without question, it is the hardest part of my job. And I had someone recently say to me who does kind of on the ground, kind of grassroots systems change work. And he said to me, it's not ever the clients that cause me to burn out, but it's the system, it's the everyday kind of feeling like you're batting your head against a wall. But yet you do, you have to, to Jennifer's point, like, you see these things afterwards and you have to take the time to appreciate them. There are changes that are being made, there are, and I look around and I look around at this panel even, and there's all these people in this panel who I admire and look up to and have seen do amazing work. And that, for me, is rejuvenating. That, for me, gives me like my feeling that I can keep going, I can keep doing this work, and that I need to keep going and doing this work for the next person to look up when they're feeling frustrated and down and struggling to see that I'm still here doing the work. And so that's, you know, there's no magic to it, but have your people be kind to yourself and keep going. Thanks so much, Emma. And Ivan, we're all really very interested in how you're coping in making the same recommendation year after year for the Correctional Service Canada. Yes, yes. You know, I think sometimes it's masochism, but I think there are two things. We tend to celebrate even the smallest of wins. So I think you have to, every time that you have a win, you have to take the time to celebrate. So big wins don't come very often, but if you focus on the little ones, so we make a lot of recommendations to wardens and most of them and many of them get implemented, but we are batting average when we make larger recommendations for reforms that are typically directed to either the commissioner corrections or the minister or the government of Canada, those tend not to, our batting average is rather poor. So celebrate the little wins. And I think the second thing that I think is in our business, line of business that will keep you sane is to keep a sense of humor because, so you can do your job exceptionally well and see very little movement, but you've got to have a sense of humor with the people surrounding you. And I think that helps cope with all the adversity in the world. Thank you so much, Ivan. And thank you so much to all of you once again for partaking in this discussion, for sharing your experiences with us, your thoughts and your suggestions and your careers are truly inspirational to our students. So we're very lucky to have been able to share a bit of that with them. And yeah, I think the video will be available in the next couple of days for those who want to watch it or share it. So yeah, thank you very much. And have a good night. Good night.