Dr. Kim Stanton
Associate, Goldblatt Partners, representing the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)
Theme Co-Lead, Indigenous and Settler Legal Systems
kstanton@goldblattpartners.com
Dr. Kim Stanton practices in the Aboriginal law group of Goldblatt Partners. She graduated from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law and practiced litigation at a national law firm in Vancouver after a clerkship at the British Columbia Supreme Court. In addition to practicing Aboriginal and constitutional law in British Columbia and Ontario, Kim has worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Gaza Strip and with the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development in Accra, where she was an Official Observer of Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission. Kim was appointed to the Ontario Health Professions Appeal and Review Board and Health Services Appeal and Review Board in 2012.
From 2013-2017, Kim was the Legal Director of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). She focused on finding ways to address violence against Indigenous women and girls while leading the national equality rights organization to intervene before multiple appellate courts and the Supreme Court of Canada to advance equality rights in cases spanning topics such as Aboriginal law, criminal law, human rights law, socioeconomic rights, and reproductive justice. During her tenure, LEAF made significant contributions to discourses on judicial accountability, the law of consent, the treatment of social welfare recipients and the treatment of sexual assault survivors and Indigenous women in the criminal justice system.
In 2016, the federal Minister of the Status of Women appointed Kim to her Advisory Council on the Federal Strategy Against Gender-based Violence. She is a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto where she completed her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Law. Her doctoral dissertation considered the use of truth commissions in established democracies and the institutional design of public inquiries.
Kim is a frequent speaker at legal conferences and has published in the areas of constitutional law, transitional justice and public inquiries. Her most recent article is a co-authored piece in the National Journal of Constitutional Law on the equality rights provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Past articles address topics that include the Supreme Court’s treatment of the concept of reconciliation, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the British Columbia Missing Women Commission.
Kim’s media appearances have included CBC Radio programs such as World at 6, Metro Morning, and The Current; CBC TV’s The National and various local news programs; CTV TV’s Power Play and CTV National News; Global TV’s Global Morning and Global News. She has been quoted in a range of newspapers and magazines, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Cape Times, Chatelaine, Flare, Canadian Lawyer, the Lawyers Daily and Macleans.