On October 29th Professor  Barrington Walker will present the third lecture in our lecture series.
Professor Walker will review the Black experience with the law in Canadian history, and what it means for the present and the future. In particular, he will examine whether Canada has a “Jim Crow” legal history. Although Canadian law did not engage in the kind of formalised legal discrimination like the American south, Professor Walker will discuss how Canadian law did little to turn formal legal equality into substantive equality and allowed opportunities for unequal treatment. For example, Ontario law permitted school boards to create separate schools if local residents asked for it until from 1858 until the 1960s. Similarly, while Canada may not have had segregated housing districts, private law achieved this through restrictive covenants while socio-economic inequality and informal actions effectively designated some areas of urban communities as “for the blacks.” Professor Walker will discuss these issues historically and also reflect on their continuing legacy.
Professor Walker is well positioned to discuss these issues because of his past scholarship. He is the author of Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario’s Criminal Courts, 1858-1958 (U of T Press and Osgoode Society, 2010) and the editor of The African-Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays (U of T Press and Osgoode Society 2012).
* approval pending for 40 minutes EDI Professionalism Credit from the Law Society for Ontario.
Join us at 5:30 p.m. in the Museum Room at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West.
This event is free provided you are an Osgoode Society Member – please register below.
If you have any questions or require any further information please contact Amanda Campbell at 416-947-3321 or at amanda.campbell@osgoodesociety.ca.
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