June 5, 2013 - 9:30am
Children’s rights advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Vancouver Island University on Wednesday, June 4.
Turpel-Lafond was recognized for her extraordinary humanitarian and public contributions to fostering awareness and understanding of the challenges and needs affecting vulnerable children in Canada.
A member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Turpel-Lafond was appointed British Columbia’s first Representative for Children and Youth in November 2006. She is on leave from the Saskatchewan Provincial Court, where she was the Administrative Judge for Saskatoon.
Turpel-Lafond was the first Aboriginal woman to be appointed to the Saskatchewan bench in 1998, and actively involved in projects relating to access to justice, judicial independence, and public outreach.
She has also worked as a criminal law judge in youth and adult courts, with an emphasis on developing partnerships to better serve the needs of young people, particularly sexually exploited children and youth, and children and youth with disabilities, such as those who suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Prior to her judicial appointment, Turpel-Lafond was a lawyer in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan and a tenured professor of law at Dalhousie University, Faculty of Law. She also taught law at the University of Toronto, the University of Notre Dame and other universities. As a practising lawyer, she appeared before all levels of Courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She has worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Centre in Washington, D.C, and served as a key legal and constitutional advisor to Aboriginal leaders.
Turpel-Lafond, who holds a doctorate of law from Harvard Law School, received the distinction of ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel’ from the Indigenous Bar Association in 2007. As well, Time Magazine has twice bestowed honours upon Turpel-Lafond, naming her one of the ‘100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow’ in 1994, and one of the ‘Top 20 Canadian Leaders for the 21st Century’ in 1999. Ms Turpel-Lafond, her husband George Lafond, Treaty Commissioner for Saskatchewan, their son and three daughters live in Victoria, B.C.
[Turpel Lafond’s speech](http://www.viu.ca/convocation/livestream/2013-06.asp)
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Janina Stajic, Manager, Vancouver Island University
Tags: In the Community
