Patricia Paradis Constitutional Law Symposium

We're excited to be partnering with the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA) for the Patricia Paradis Constitutional Law Symposium this October.

This symposium will examine pressing and evolving issues in Canadian constitutional law. Join leading scholars and practitioners to explore topics including:

• Legal Pluralism, One Judicial System: When and How Canadian Courts Engage with Indigenous Laws
• Climate Federalism
• “Speaking with Counsel”: A Phrase of Constitutional Significance
• Insolvency Law and the Charter
• Legislated Standards of Review and Constitutional Values: Can We Legislate How Constitutional Review is Conducted?

This program honours Patricia Paradis, former Executive Director of the Centre for Constitutional Studies. It is intended for lawyers and academics who are interested in constitutional law.

The full-day symposium will be hosted on Friday, October 23, 2026 from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Attendance is available both in-person at LESA's program space (Suite 1401, 10088-102 Avenue, Edmonton AB) and online via livestream. Please note that there is a registration fee of $50 + GST for all types of tickets. Register through LESA here.

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Symposium Topics

Legal Pluralism, One Judicial System: When and How Canadian Courts Engage with Indigenous Laws
This panel examines when and how it is appropriate for Canadian courts to interpret and apply Indigenous laws. Panelists will discuss how Indigenous laws, as part of living legal traditions, enter Canadian legal analysis, including evidentiary recognition through oral histories, expert opinions, and accounts of traditional ceremonies and practices. Even though courts’ engagement with Indigenous laws is not something new (e.g. Woolrich v Connolly, Casimel, Delgamuukw, Tsilhqot’in), there are still questions regarding whether Canadian courts are competent and equipped to apply Indigenous laws as independent sources of authority, in all their depth and complexity, rather than as mere evidentiary inputs into common law. This includes assessing the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its emphasis on legal pluralism and self-determination. Attention will be paid to methodological challenges: how courts interpret Indigenous legal orders without distorting them, the risks of judicial translation into common law categories, and the institutional limits of Canadian courts as forums for plural legal expression. The panel is designed for legal practitioners seeking to understand how jurisprudential trends are redefining the boundaries between Canadian and Indigenous legal orders and what this means for litigation strategy, judicial education, and the broader project of reconciliation.

Climate Federalism 4.0?
There is no tidy formula for periodizing and characterizing climate governance in Canada, particularly when accounting for the federal-provincial dynamics which colour and define different regulatory epochs. By some accounts, Canada traversed three intersecting phases of climate federalism between 1990 and 2025, including a period of consensus decision-making (1990-2007), a phase of province-led initiatives (2007-2016), and an era of federal dominance (2016-2024). A combination of global and domestic developments, beginning with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, punctuated by Donald Trump’s election in the United States in 2024, and culminating in Mark Carney’s emergence as Canada’s prime minister in 2025, appear to have ushered in a new dispensation of climate federalism in Canada.

While ex-post periodization has its usefulness, identifying ongoing trends is essential both epistemically and functionally. The objective of this panel is to understand the current state of climate federalism in Canada. Several questions beg for answers. Is Canada truly in a new phase of climate federalism (climate federalism 4.0)? What are the characteristics of Canada’s current iteration of climate federalism? What are the constitutional issues likely to emerge from the current iteration? To what extent does Canada’s current climate federalism align with or diverge from its constitutional framework? Is the prevailing climate governance framework constitutionally consistent while lacking the ambition and urgency climate change requires? And what lessons from Canada’s history of climate federalism are helpful for understanding and addressing the current dispensation of climate federalism?

“Speaking with Counsel”: A Phrase of Constitutional Significance
Section 10(b) of the Charter provides a constitutional right to counsel for detainees. Recent jurisprudence across Canada has highlighted some tensions in the interpretation of this fundamental right, including, notably, the sufficiency of the one-time consultation, issues pertaining to the legal awareness of the detainee, and the impact of a more detailed definition of police duties under section 10(b) on other Charter rights.

Insolvency Law and the Charter
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrines some of our cardinal legal rights and freedoms, but is generally viewed as limiting government power not private actors. Insolvency law enables private actors to discharge or restructure their indebtedness. At first blush, it may appear that the Charter has little applicability to insolvency law. To the contrary, this panel will explore some of the ways in which the Charter can engage with insolvency law and, in doing so, contribute to the larger conversation around the relevance of the Charter in private law.

Legislated Standards of Review and Constitutional Values: Can We Legislate How Constitutional Review is Conducted?
This panel will address the intersection between constitutional law and statutory interpretation, considering how “values” and “purposes” from the constitution should affect statutory interpretation, even when the statute’s constitutionality is not challenged. This panel will also address the extent, if any, that the manner of constitutional review can be prescribed by legislation, particularly looking at experiences in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba.