Reimagining Justice: Past, present and future of Canadian legal history, 25-26 September 2026, Toronto

We are happy to announce that the registration webpage is now operational for our Reimagining Justice celebration and conference to be held in Toronto on the last weekend of September. This conference will celebrate the significant careers and contributions of three senior scholars: Constance Backhouse, Jim Phillips and Philip Girard, and identify directions for new research, following a ‘looking back to look forward’ model of reflective practice.  
Because space is limited, you can apply to come to one or both, and we will keep two separate waitlists if needed for each part of the event:

• The reception Friday, September 25, beginning at 5:30 pm (1 Dundas Street, Toronto, the site of the York University Osgoode Professional Development program) will honour Constance Backhouse and reflect on the field’s growth.
  

• The day-long conference Saturday, September 26 (University of Toronto's Faculty Club) will feature an exciting range of papers from scholars who have been especially influenced by Jim Phillips and Philip Girard. In addition, there will be a roundtable featuring reflections from the bench on the impact of legal history research on the Canadian legal landscape, and on the arguments made before them, by The Hon. Paul Schabas, Ontario Superior Court of Justice; The Hon. Robert Sharpe, Ontario Court of Appeal (ret.); The Hon. Michael Tulloch, Chief Justice, Ontario Court of Appeal; and The Hon. Mahmud Jamal, Supreme Court of Canada.
  

Thanks to funding from a SSHRC Connections Grant, and the generous support of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Department of History, Osgoode Hall Law School, and the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, there are no conference fees. Limited travel stipends are available for graduate students coming from outside the Greater Toronto Area. If you are interested in a travel stipend, please contact our conference RA, Wyeth Robertson ([email protected]) for instructions on how to apply.
 
Organizing Committee: Heidi Bohaker (History, University of Toronto), Lyndsay Campbell (Law and History, University of Calgary), Lori Chambers (History and Women’s Studies, Lakehead University), and Trish McMahon (Osgoode Hall Law School)