Course Chairs
Halie Kwanxwa'loga Bruce — Cedar and Sage LLP, Cultus Lake
Nadia K. Farinelli — Crown Counsel, Ministry of Attorney General, Vancouver
Halie (Kwanxwa’loga) Bruce is a member of the Namgis/Kwa’kwa’kawakw Nation. Halie has over 30 years of experience working with Indigenous communities. Before receiving her Juris Doctorate from UBC, Halie was the Administrator and Policy Coordinator for the Union of BC Indian Chiefs where she worked with Indigenous communities and governments from across BC, Canada and internationally, with respect to Aboriginal Title & Rights, Self-determination, land, resource, and social policy. She is a past member of the BC First Nations Justice Council and is a current Board member of the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation.
Halie's legal practice has included Indigenous family law, Indigenous laws and governance, fisheries, Aboriginal business and Indigenous dispute resolution, laws and peacemaking protocols. Halie has acted as counsel for parents and grandparents in child protection matters and assisted with research and editing of both editions of the Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook (2015 & 2021). She has devoted part of her practice to Indigenous restorative justice initiatives, including writing Gladue Reports for bail, sentencing, and appeal courts in BC.
Halie has participated as a speaker, panelist and presenter at various CLEBC conferences, and co-chaired CLE sessions focusing on Access to Justice for Children, Gladue Submissions, and Indigenous Laws. She has presented at a number of gatherings on Indigenous topics as diverse as Aboriginal Title & Rights, Indigenous child welfare, housing, matrimonial property, poverty, cultural competency, trauma-informed decision making, and Indigenous conflict resolution.
Nadia Farinelli is Administrative Crown Counsel with the Commercial, Police and Regulatory Prosecutions Section of the BC Prosecution Service. She holds a JD from the University of Victoria and two LLMs from New York University and the National University of Singapore. Prior to being called to the bar in 2008, she clerked for the BC Supreme Court and worked as an intern in Nairobi, Kenya for the Canadian Bar Association and Canadian International Development Agency. Prior to joining the Provincial Crown, she worked for a large national law firm in its labour, employment and civil litigation group, as a Fellow for the International Centre for Transitional Justice in New York, as a Federal agent prosecutor, and as in-house litigation counsel for the Greater Vancouver Regional District. In her current role, she conducts prosecutions in the areas of environmental and regulatory law, commercial crime and police prosecutions.
Keynote Speaker
Chief Commissioner Marion R. Buller — Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, Vancouver
Marion Buller is a member of the Mistawasis Nehiyawak, a Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan. She started her legal career as a lawyer, practicing in criminal, administrative, and human rights law. She was the Commission Counsel for the Cariboo-Chilcotin Justice Inquiry. She was Director and President of the Indigenous Bar Association and other organizations.
Ms. Buller was the first Indigenous woman appointed as a Provincial Court Judge in BC. She presided in courts in many locations across BC, including the northern circuit court. She founded the First Nations Court and provided the foundation for the Indigenous Family Court. These are courts that consider the special circumstances of Indigenous people. Ms. Buller has also written extensively about Indigenous and Human rights.
After 22 years as a judge, Ms. Buller was appointed as the Chief Commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. This was a precedent-setting and truly national inquiry. The National Inquiry's strongly-worded Final Report and Calls for Justice have attracted both national and international attention. Ms. Buller has received numerous awards in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of Indigenous and Human Rights.
Planning Committee
Leah B.M. Fontaine — Crown Counsel, Ministry of Attorney General, Duncan
Jamala C. MacRae — Crown Counsel, Ministry of Attorney General, Port Coquitlam
Gloria M. Ng — Gloria Ng Law, Vancouver
Kevin B. Westell — Pender Litigation, Vancouver
Leah Fontaine is Ojibway from Sagkeeng and Brokenhead First Nations in Manitoba. In 2002, Leah graduated from UBC Law School and started her career in Indigenous Child Welfare and Indigenous Rights law. In 2006, Leah joined the BC Prosecution Service (BCPS) and is currently on a secondment at the BCPS Headquarters working on the implementation of the Indigenous Justice Framework and Policy.
Leah continues to be involved with numerous committees, boards and projects focusing on reforming Policy and Practice in order to improve the experience of Indigenous offenders and vulnerable victims and witnesses. Leah has presented as an Indigenous Justice expert locally and Nationally on Trauma Informed Practice, Indigenous Justice, and Cultural Competency Safety. Leah has contributed to the development of online Indigenous Cultural Competency Safety training with San'yas, the Justice Institute of BC, and Indigenous Cultural Safety Collaborative Learning Series. In 2018 and 2020, Leah was hired by the Justice Education Society as a subject matter expert to lead needs assessments on access to Justice for Indigenous people in Guatemala and Guyana. Leah has also been the Region One Regional Director for the BC Crown Counsel Association board since 2015.
Gloria Ng is a criminal defence lawyer practicing out of Vancouver. She was called to the bar in May 2009, after graduating from UBC's Faculty of Law.
Gloria is a sole practitioner and represents clients facing a variety of criminal charges at all levels of court in BC. As part of her trial practice, Gloria regularly mounts constitutional challenges in areas such as search and seizure, unlawful arrest and detention, right to counsel, and the right to silence.
Gloria is a member of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers, the Trial Lawyer's Association of BC, and its Criminal Defence Litigation Group, and the Advocates Club. Gloria also volunteers as a Principal supervising students in the UBC Criminal Clinic.
Kevin Westell is a founding partner at Pender Litigation. He earned his law degree at the Robson Hall School of Law at the University of Manitoba before being called to the BC bar in 2009.
Kevin routinely defends accused persons before all levels of court in BC and has acted as trial counsel in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. He is retained from time to time to prosecute cases on behalf of the Attorney General of BC in courts across the lower mainland and before the Mental Health Review Board. Mr. Westell has also been called upon to act as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of BC and the BC Court of Appeal.
Kevin has presented at many continuing legal education conferences including the CBA National Criminal Law Conference, the CLEBC Winning Trial Advocacy Workshop, and the Osgoode Hall Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshop (ITAW) as well as various other programs put on by the Advocate's Society and CLEBC.
He currently serves as president of the Advocate's Club and as a member of the Executive Committee of the CBA National Criminal Justice Section, the Advocates' Society's British Columbia Advisory Committee, and the TLABC Criminal Law Committee. He has previously served as Chair of the CBA Vancouver Criminal Justice Subsection.
Faculty
The Honourable Mr. Justice Leonard S. Marchand — Court of Appeal for BC, Kamloops
The Honourable Mr. Justice Michael H. Tulloch — Court of Appeal for Ontario, Toronto
The Honourable Judge David A. St. Pierre — Provincial Court of BC, Vancouver
The Honourable Judge Linda D. Thomas — Provincial Court of BC, Fort St. John
The Honourable Madam Justice Lori Anne Thomas — Ontario Court of Justice, Toronto
Susan Eng — Director, Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, Toronto
Chief Leah Sisi-ya-ama George-Wilson — Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, Vancouver
Kasari Govender — Human Rights Commissioner of BC, Victoria
Meenakshi Mannoe — Criminalization & Policing Campaigner, Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver
Professor Kent W. Roach — University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Toronto
Daniel Song — Pringle Chivers Sparks Teskey, Vancouver
Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond/Akikwe — Senior Associate Counsel, Woodward & Company Lawyers LLP, Victoria
Douglas S. White, QC Kwulasultun — Chair, BC First Nations Justice Council, Nanaimo
Nana Yanful — Legal Director, Black Legal Action Centre, Toronto
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