Keynotes (2019)
Catherine Bate
Catherine Bate is the Leader of the Marketing, Advertising & Product Compliance Group at Miller Thomson LLP in Toronto, and is recognized as one of Canada’s leading lawyers in the field. Cathy advises on all aspects of marketing, advertising and consumer product regulatory matters. From sweepstakes to price promotions, privacy to consumer protection, performance claims to product recalls, she helps multinational corporations and start-ups alike develop practical, effective solutions and compliance strategies. Cathy provides practical advice to help manage compliance obligations in light of rapidly evolving industry trends.
Diana Bronson
Diana Bronson joined Food Secure Canada as Executive Director in March 2012 and has worked to strengthen FSC as the national voice of the Canadian food movement. Diana is trained as a political scientist and sociologist and has a professional background in journalism (CBC radio) and international human rights (Rights & Democracy) as well as international climate and technology negotiations at the UN (ETC Group.)
Diana's research, policy and advocacy work has centered on supporting social movements around the world, critically reviewing and edcucating around international trade and investment agreements, looking at the impacts of Canadian mining companies, and assessing the social and environmental impacts of emerging technologies. She has participated in many international negotiations on human rights, climate change, biodiversity, technology and sustainable development over the past two decades. She also worked in a senior position on Parliament Hill from 2006-2008. She lives and works in Montreal.
Donald Buckingham
Dr. Don Buckingham is currently the CEO of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. Previously, he was the Chairperson, Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal (CART), and Chairperson, Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals (CCAT). Dr. Buckingham has acted as a private lawyer, government lawyer, law professor, author and consultant. Between 2006 and 2009, he worked as a legal counsel to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and as an advisor to the Minister of Justice. From 1990-2006, he was a law professor at three Canadian universities where he taught courses and conducted research on agriculture, food, constitutional, administrative, tort and international law. Prior to 1990, he was a lawyer with the Halifax firm of Patterson Kitz.
Passionate about the various aspects of agriculture and food since growing up on the family farm in Saskatchewan, Dr. Buckingham then pursued his food and agriculture interests in law, completing an LL.B. at the University of Saskatchewan, a masters level law degree (D.I.L.) at the University of Cambridge; and a Doctorate in Law jointly from the University of Ottawa and Université Montpellier 1 (France) exploring national and international legal dimensions of food labelling in Canada, France and Ghana.
Co-author of five books, including Agriculture Law in Canada, and sole author of Halsbury's Laws of Canada: Agriculture and Halsbury's Laws of Canada: Food, Dr. Buckingham has also written an extensive array of chapters and entries in other books and academic journals. His most recent article, entitled “From Dunsmuirto Doré and beyond: Why administrative law matters in the protection of religious freedom in Canada”, appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of the Supreme Court Law Review. Born in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, he has resided in Ottawa with his wife Janet for the past 17 years. He loves to travel, to cycle, to cook and to try out new recipes on unsuspecting guests and family members.
Lorraine Fleck
Lorraine Fleck is a lawyer and trademark agent based in Toronto who has practiced exclusively in the areas of intellectual property, privacy, social media and advertising and marketing law since 2005. She has been recognized by World Trademark Review magazine as a recommended trademark expert in Canada in the fields of litigation, enforcement, prosecution (trademark applications) and strategy. She has also been recommended by her peers to Best Lawyers ® in Canada for her expertise in intellectual property law.
Martha Jackman
Martha Jackman, B.A. (Queen’s), LL.B. (Toronto), LL.M. (Yale), specializes in the area of constitutional law, with a particular focus on issues relating to women and other marginalized groups. She joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa in 1988. She has held various positions within the law school: Director of Graduate Studies in Law; co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law; Vice-Dean of the French Common Law Program; and Shirley E. Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession. She publishes primarily in the areas of socio-economic rights, equality and the Canadian Charter. She appears regularly before law reform bodies, lawyers, judges and parliamentary committees. She has acted as legal counsel in a number of important Charter cases, including before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Chaoulli case. She is a member of the National Steering Committee of the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL/ANFD) and a former member of Equality Rights Panel of the Court Challenges Program of Canada and of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF/FAEJ). From 2004-2015 she was the academic director of two successive five-year, million dollar research projects: “Social Rights Accountability Project” and "Reconceiving Human Rights Practice", funded under the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Community-University Research Alliance Program. In 2001, she was awarded the Augusta Stowe-Gullen Affirmative Action medal in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of women’s equality. In 2007, she received the Law Society of Upper Canada Medal for her contributions to the profession and in 2015, was the recipient of the Canadian Bar Association’s Touchstone Award.
Camille Labchuk
Camille Labchuk is an animal rights lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice—Canada’s only animal law advocacy organization. Animal Justice works to promote tough new animal protection legislation, enforce laws already on the books, and fights legal cases in courtrooms. Camille’s work includes intervening in court cases to protect and enhance animals’ legal interests; filing false advertising complaints against companies making misleading humane claims; documenting Canada’s commercial seal slaughter; exposing hidden suffering on farms and zoos through undercover investigations. Camille is a frequent lecturer on animal law, and a regular contributor to publications like the Globe and Mail, iPolitics, and Huffington Post, and her work has been featured in countless media stories.
Joseph LeBlanc
Dr. Joseph LeBlanc is a life-long Northern Ontarian and the Executive Director of the Social Planning Council of Sudbury. Passionate about social planning, he has extensive expertise in community-based research and development throughout the region. Before joining the Social Planning Council of Sudbury in 2015, he worked for a diverse range of organizations, including academic institutions, non-profits, and Aboriginal non-profit governance corporations.
He holds an Honours Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Forest Conservation, an Environmental Management Certificate and a PhD in Forest Sciences from Lakehead University. A big believer in asset-based community development and its possibilities, he leads a team of highly skilled personnel, providing planning, research, development, assessment, and accountability services to a wide variety of partners and clients.
Beth MacNeil
Beth MacNeil works as Director General for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Shane Martínez
Shane Martínez (BA, LLB, LEC) is a lawyer originally from New Brunswick. Now based in Toronto, Ontario, one of Shane’s primary areas of practice is human rights law, with a specific focus on the rights of migrant farmworkers from Mexico and the Caribbean. He litigated the first successful human rights case in Ontario on behalf of a migrant farmworker (Monrose v. Double Diamond Acres Limited, 2013 HRTO 1273), and frequently lectures on access to justice and the need for fundamental changes to the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.
Geneviève Parent
Geneviève Parent est professeure titulaire à la Faculté de droit de l'Université Laval et titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en droit sur la diversité et la sécurité alimentaires. Ses champs d¹intérêts sont la sécurité alimentaire et le droit de l’agroalimentaire national et international. Ses recherches portent notamment sur les moyens juridiques nationaux et internationaux d’assurer la diversité alimentaire, l’analyse des impacts du droit international sur la législation canadienne et québécoise de l’agroalimentaire et la recherche d’une plus grande cohérence entre le droit international économique et les autres sphères du droit international public au profit d’une sécurité alimentaire mondiale durable. Elle a contribué à la rédaction de nombreux ouvrages scientifiques et est fréquemment invitée à prononcer des conférences dans diverses rencontres nationales et internationales.
Priscilla Settee
Priscilla Settee is member of Cumberland House Swampy Cree First Nations and a Professor of Indigenous Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She has won recognition nationally and internationally as an award winning professor and as a global educator/activist. She is the author of two books Pimatisiwin, Global Indigenous Knowledge Systems (2013) that looks at global Indigenous Knowledge Systems and The Strength of Women, Ahkameyimohk (2011) that examines the role of Indigenous women’s stories in establishing truth, reconciliation and social change. Dr. Settee is working on her third book on Indigenous Food Sovereignty. She is a kohkum to Nya Lily and Lola Rose.
Tammy Switucha
Tammy Switucha is the Senior Director of Domestic Food Safety Planning and Requirements with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. She has worked in the Federal Government for over 25 years and has been with the CFIA for the past 10 years. She has held various executive positions at the CFIA, in functions such as International Relations and Strategic Policy. Notably, she led the negotiation of the Food Safety Comparability Agreement with the US Food and Drug Administration under the Government of Canada’s Regulatory Cooperation Council. She was also instrumental in developing the CFIA’s
response to the Weatherill Investigation into the Listeriosis Outbreak.
Tammy is currently leading the Agency’s efforts to modernize its regulatory framework for food safety – the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations – which have been under development since 2014. This work also involves the development of guidance material for industry stakeholders.
** Joining by special opening video message on the right to food/five years since his mission **
Olivier De Schutter
Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of IPES-Food. He served as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from May 2008 until May 2014 and was elected to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2014. Olivier De Schutter (LL.M., Harvard University ; Ph.D., University of Louvain (UCL)) is a Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and has also taught at the College of Europe (Natolin), as a Member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University and as Visiting Professor at Columbia University. In 2013 he was awarded Belgium’s top scientific award, the Prix Francqui, for his contribution to the advancement of EU law, the theory of governance, and human rights law. In 2002-2006, he chaired the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high-level group of experts which advised the European Union institutions on fundamental rights issues. He has acted on a number of occasions as expert for the Council of Europe and for the European Union. Since 2004, and until his appointment as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, he served as General Secretary of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) on the issue of globalization and human rights. His publications are in the area of international human rights and fundamental rights in the EU, with a particular emphasis on economic and social rights and on the relationship between human rights and governance.