The short lecture in which Justice Rowe quoted Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (“every human should be free”), and Voltaire (“I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death, your right to say it”), served to inspire many questions from the law students attending. Justice Rowe demonstrated that the seemingly-dusty philosophers hold especial relevance in this age of social media, cancel culture and freedom of discussion, which Justice Rowe. said, “extends equally to every corner of Canada.”

Nadeau and David facilitated questions following the lecture to help law students get to know the justice, who had been appointed to the SCC on October 28, 2016. Questions surrounded Reconciliation, what changes in legal practice Justice Rowe has seen throughout his career, which started in 1978 when he was first called to the Bar of Newfoundland and Labrador, and what advice he would offer to aspiring judges.

The latter question made Justice Rowe laugh and say that it is unrealistic to aspire to be a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada since it is very much a lottery to be chosen from a Court of Appeal. “At most, you can aspire to be in the pool the judges are chosen from,” he said.

For his own path, Justice Rowe worked for the Department of External Affairs as a Foreign Service Officer early in his legal career, before joining the Ottawa office of the law firm of Gowling and Henderson as it was called in 1984. In 1996, he became Clerk of the Executive Council and Secretary to Cabinet in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. He was appointed to the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in 1999 and the Court of Appeal in 2001. He has served as a lecturer in public and constitutional law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law and has published articles on public international law.

Students in the audience at Robson Hall were inspired by his talk to ask Justice Rowe about reconciling the ideals of free speech in the time of Sartre and Camus with the way matters are today in a modern world of social media. Questions also included what he thought were the most serious challenges facing the Justice system today. To the latter, Justice Rowe immediately raised the issue of Access to Justice.

Students, faculty members and a number of practicing legal professionals all took the opportunity to ask questions and greet the justice during his visit and at the reception that followed.

Dr. Kidd White’s areas of teaching and research specialization are in legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, and public international law. She holds a JSD, and an LLM in International Legal Studies, both from New York University School of Law, a JD from Queen’s University Faculty of Law, and a BAH in Politics and Philosophy also from Queen’s. She had been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security,  has held a research fellowship at the Jean Monnet Center for Regional and International Economic Law and Justice, and previously taught with the Institute for International Law and Justice. Dr. Kidd White is a faculty member of the Ontario Legal Philosophy Partnership.

Dr. Emily Kidd White is an Assistant Professor at Osgood Hall Law School.

An emerging scholar in the field of law and emotions, Dr. Kidd White will soon publish a work on Judicial Emotions with Oxford University Press. Along with Susan Bandes, Jody Madeira, and Kathryn Temple, Professor Kidd White is editing the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on Law and Emotions.

On Thursday, the University of Manitoba community can expect to hear Dr. Kidd White discuss the critical potential in bringing together the philosophy of emotion and the study of law. In the abstract for her talk, she explains:

“Narratives about legitimate political and legal authority have tended to either assume that it is possible to extricate emotions from political judgement, or to rest upon uncomplicated (and wholly demystified) assumptions about the legibility of emotions over time and place. Philosophers interested in emotion have regularly grappled with questions concerning an emotion’s reach and range (insofar that the emotion in question bears an intersubjective component), and recognition (comprehensibility) of emotions beyond one’s own social and political communities (or even beyond one’s self). Emotions contain evaluative judgments, and, as such, they strike as subjectively involved and image-laden “engagements with the world” (to quote Robert Solomon’s memorable phrase). Where evaluative judgements are embedded within the structure of an emotion, we can expect it to be scripted, at least to an extent, by time and place, which raises, in turn, questions of all sorts pertaining to reach, range, and recognition. This talk will explore a whole series of questions that the philosophy of emotions raises for the study and practice of law.”

All are welcome to attend the talk on Thursday, February 29, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. in Room 207, Robson Hall.

“Contemporary feminist protest politics are reshaping the field of comparative abortion law,” said Erdman. “While fighting for law reform, abortion rights activists today are part of mass movements and democratic transitions, and ultimately a collective reclaiming of political power.” 

Erdman’s talk is important, especially in the context of recent history including the 2017 Women’s March on Washington after Trump’s inauguration and the Supreme Court of the United States’ overturning of Roe v. Wade, its own 50-year-old decision that had declared the constitutional right to abortion for Americans. With certain States subsequently outlawing abortion, the actions of Canada’s neighbour should be of interest to Canadians. “I always think Canadians need to be on guard against normative pushes from the US,” said Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series organizer, Dr. Katie Szilagyi.

Professor Joanna Erdman, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University.

Erdman holds the MacBain Chair in Health Law and Policy at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie Health Justice Institute in Halifax. She has acted as an intervener before various constitutional courts and international bodies and chairs the Global Health Advisory Committee of the Public Health Program. Serving on the advisory board of the Women’s Rights Program, Open Society Foundations, she is a past chair of World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research Gender and Rights Advisory Panel. She holds a JD from the University of Toronto, an LLM from Harvard Law School, and completed a fellowship at Yale Law School. 

Her research focuses on sexual and reproductive health law in a transnational context for which she has received several major research grants including a CIHR Project Grant and a SHRCC Insight Grant. She currently teaches courses in public law, health law, and directs Schulich Law’s International Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Practicum. She is a two-time winner of the Hanna & Harold Barnet Award in Teaching First-Year Law at Schulich.

Erdman has edited several texts on health law and abortion law, plus several articles on abortion, harm reduction and social change in law journals including Reproductive Health Matters, the Ottawa Law Review, and the Health and Human Rights Journal.

At the Distinguished Visitors lecture, Erdman will share her current and ongoing work in the area of sexual and reproductive health law.

Erdman is a member of the Law Program Committee, for the national Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), holds a Legal and Human Rights Seat on the Steering Committee for Inroads: International Network for the Reduction of Abortion, and is a member of the Research Protocol Review Panel, Reproductive Health and Research Department, World Health Organization.

The Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series is organized by a committee of UM Faculty of Law professors to augment the educational experience of students, faculty, staff, and members of the local University and Legal community at large. Guest speakers are experts in their respective fields and are renowned nationally and internationally, hailing from near and far. Recordings of past lectures can be viewed on the Robson Hall Youtube Channel.