LEAF's Personhood Speaker Series will create a space to discuss what makes a ‘person’ and whose voices need centering in conversations about gender equality in 2020 and beyond.

Our second panel will focus on the potential for “transformative justice” to address harms, particularly for survivors of gender-based and sexual violence. Transformative justice looks to collective community action, and not traditional criminal justice processes, to address violence. Transformative justice has grown out of the need for healing and accountability in Black and Indigenous communities where calling the police and other state agents has too often resulted in further violence and community disruption.

It recognizes that traditional criminal justice processes fail to address the needs of many, particularly those from Black and Indigenous communities. As we have learned in summer of 2020, for too many Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, police and prisons are sources of violence, not safety.

Our panel will feature Rachel Zellars, Lawyer and assistant professor at Saint Mary's University, Aseefa Sarang, Executive Director of Across Boundaries, and Audrey Huntley, filmmaker and co-founder of "No More Silence". Kai Cheng Thom, writer, performer, meditation teacher and community worker, will moderate the discussion.

This panel discussion will attempt to re-imagine what safety, accountability and justice could look like outside of the traditional criminal justice system. These speakers will unpack what calls to defund the police could mean for survivors of sexual and gendered violence. They will discuss the possible role of community action – as opposed to police, government and traditional legal actors – in responding to the needs of women, girls and all those who experience gender-based violence.

The funds raised through LEAF's Personhood Speaker Series will continue to support our work to advance substantive equality rights in Canada through litigation, law reform and education.

Thank you to our generous sponsors for making this event possible: CUPE National, UFCW Canada, Delaney Capital Management, BMO, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Koskie Minsky LLP, Ontario Nurses' Association, Goldblatt Partners LLP, The Law Society of Ontario, Stockwoods LLP, Lax O'Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb LLP, Kastner Law, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Lerners LLP, AMAPCEO, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA) and Madame Premier.