Canada Seminar

A Conversation With Madame Justice Rosalie Abella, Canadian Supreme Court Justice (ret.) and Steve Paikin, Broadcaster, Journalist, Author, Debate Moderator, and Podcaster

Introductory Remarks:
Ayelet Shachar, William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Weatherhead Canada Program, and Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

The Honorable Rosalie Silberman Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004. She was the first Jewish woman appointed the Supreme Court. She was appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976 at the age of 29. She subsequently chaired the Ontario Law Reform Commission and the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Justice Abella was the sole Commissioner and author of the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, creating the term and concept of “employment equity” and developing a concept of discrimination and equality the Supreme Court adopted in its first decision interpreting the new equality provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She was the Boulton Visiting Professor at McGill Law School from 1988 to 1992, where she taught jurisprudence, administrative law, and constitutional law. In 1992 she was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal where she served for 12 years until her appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Abella is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in classical piano, a former judge of the Giller Literary Prize, a former chair of the Rhodes Scholar selection committee, has written over 90 articles, authored or co-authored four books, was a pioneer in judicial education, and lectures extensively in Canada and internationally. She has 42 honorary degrees. She was married to Canadian History professor Irving Abella from 1968 until his death in 2022. They have two sons, both lawyers. Since her retirement from the Supreme Court, she has been the Samuel and Judith Pisar Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. 

For more than four decades, Steve Paikin has been a sober voice of rational, fact-based journalism in a world where "alternative facts" too often seem in vogue. For 19 seasons, he hosted The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVO, the Ontario public broadcaster's flagship nightly current affairs program. Steve's strictly non-partisan approach to covering politics has resulted in his having been asked to moderate four federal election leaders' debates and five Ontario provincial election leaders' debates. Steve was born in Hamilton, Ontario, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Toronto, and his Master's Degree in Broadcast Journalism at Boston University. He was invested as an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario, both in 2013. In 2025, the Public Policy Forum gave him the lifetime achievement award for excellence in journalism.