HomeMedia Requests>News>Asper Centre celebrates 10 years with a special constitutional panel, and a $2.5 million gift from namesake, David Asper
Asper Centre celebrates 10 years with a special constitutional panel, and a $2.5 million gift from namesake, David Asper
Friday, October 26, 2018
Constitutional panel includes the former SCC Justice Thomas Cromwell moderating, with Joseph Arvay and Mary Eberts as panelists.
By Lucianna Ciccocioppo / Photography by Dhoui Chang
You can accomplish a lot in 10 years, with strategic vision and leadership, enthusiastic support and some very bright law students—and that’s exactly what the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights did: 46 constitutional roundtables, 21 student working groups, 20 interventions at the Supreme Court of Canada, 10 conferences and symposia and seven Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence.
The Asper Centre celebrated 10 years of advocacy, legal research, student clinic work and a litany of achievements with a special panel discussion with top litigators in the constitutional bar—and a gift of confidence from its benefactor, David Asper, to ensure the centre’s viability for years to come.
“I’m actually amazed at how much they’ve done in a relatively short period of time,” said Asper who attended the anniversary event at the Faculty of Law on Oct. 17, 2018. “It takes a while to start a centre, and then it takes time to earn credibility across the country and with the courts, and it’s very impressive how they’ve been able to do that.”
Asper donated $2.5 million, as part of the Campaign for Excellence without Barriers, to fund the David Asper Bursary, and to guarantee the future of the one-of-a-kind Asper Centre, the only constitutional advocacy and research centre with experiential learning for students at a law school. This gift is in addition to the $7.5 million Asper donated in 2007, then the largest individual gift to the Faculty of Law, which kick-started the building campaign and launched the centre.
Supporting the Campaign for Excellence without Barriers: Dean Ed Iacobucci, Executive Director Cheryl Milne with benefactor and alumnus, David Asper
A LLM graduate of the Faculty of Law and a prominent criminal defense lawyer, Asper successfully represented David Milgaard in overturning one of Canada’s most notorious wrongful conviction cases. After the cancellation of the Federal Court challenges program, which occurred during his graduate studies here, Asper stepped up and conceptualized its replacement, and it took only one year to hit the ground running in its advocacy work.
Executive Director Cheryl Milne has led the centre since its opening and has grown the program significantly. As part of the anniversary event, a panel discussing Canada’s constitutional top issues, was moderated by former Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell, in conversation with two of the country’s top constitutional lawyers, Joseph Arvay and Mary Eberts. Arvay and Eberts, who received Orders of Canada this year, were also among the centre’s prominent participants in the Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence program, where they shared the breadth and depth of their legal expertise and skills with law students in experiential clinics. John Norris, Raj Anand, Janet Minor and Breese Davies were also Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence and the current resident is Susan Ursel.
As Dean Iacobucci and Cheryl Milne said in their opening remarks, the centre has collaborated with prominent political scientists from the University of Toronto and across Canada and has written on the state of Canada’s democracy, the role of unwritten constitutional conventions and how the Canadian government works. It has made submissions to government committees on legal issues ranging from the privacy rights of jurors to various amendments to the criminal code. The centre’s ground-breaking work also includes pioneering clinical legal pedagogy, including incorporating reflective learning and legal project management into constitutional work.
Asked which Asper Centre achievement made him most proud, David Asper said there is more than one. “It begins with the Ward case, where the concept of damages for breach of the Charter was first litigated. And then as it was applied in Henry, in wrongful conviction cases, that was particularly near and dear to my heart. But I think the breadth of not only the cases being litigated but the dialogue being generated by the centre, which is oftentimes effective, or as effective as litigation, covers the spectrum.”
About 100 people turned out to celebrate the anniversary event, and the Asper Centre’s success. Added David Asper: “You’ve heard from the panellists today: the old-timers get energized when we engage with the students. We get inspired. We think differently. We get fresh approaches and then you see it come full circle when they are in the Court themselves. So it’s very heartwarming... and I can sit back and enjoy the success.”
