Webinar | Legislative Drafting [series] – Cosmetics Regulation and Product Labelling in Canada: The Challenges

Date: November 16, 2022 / 3:30 pm
Price per person: CIAJ Members: $40 / Non Members: $55
Location: Online: 90-minute webinar beginning at 3:30 pm ET (see the different time zones across Canada)

***This event is over. You can watch the video here.

This program contains 1.5 CPD hours in all Canadian provinces

Overview

What can we learn from histories of legislative drafting about the many ways that drafters shape the world? In this highly engaging presentation, Lara Tessaro will narrate the dramatic history of the 1953 revision to Canada’s Food and Drugs Act, focusing specifically on how legislative drafters and departmental solicitors grappled with cosmetics. Her historical research on Canadian cosmetics regulation has uncovered how these drafting and policy choices made 70 years ago continue to influence—if unintentionally and accidentally—how cosmetics are governed today, including their environmental and human health effects. As with much of Ms. Tessaro’s PhD research at the University of Kent, the central source for this historical account is a drafter’s file—notably, the file of well-known legislative counsel Elmer A. Driedger. As such, this presentation will also provide an opportunity for legislative counsel to reflect on the ways that modern-day filing, documenting, and archiving practices, all changing rapidly in response to electronic and remote work, will give form to important “future histories” written about the present.

Speaker

Lara Tessaro is a socio-legal researcher and historian of law, gender, and toxicity in twentieth-century Canada. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in law at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, funded by a Vice Chancellor’s research scholarship and a SSHRC doctoral fellowship. Her thesis explores histories of Canadian cosmetic regulation, with particular focus on the legal practices, ideas, and events that have given shape to cosmetic product labelling. In 2018, she attained a research-based LL.M. degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, which nominated her thesis for the York University thesis prize. From 2004 to 2017, Lara practiced law in BC and Ontario, primarily in environmental and administrative law. For much of that period, she worked as a staff counsel at Ecojustice Canada (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund), where she developed and advanced test case litigation on behalf of environmental organizations, First Nations, and scientists. She has also served as junior commission counsel to two federal public inquiries, the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar (the Arar Inquiry), and the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River (the Cohen Inquiry).

Moderator

  • Pauline Rosenbaum, Legislative Counsel, Ontario’s Office of Legislative Counsel

Pauline attended law school at the University of Toronto and articled as a judicial research clerk at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. She joined Ontario’s Office of Legislative Counsel in 2010. Before joining OLC, Pauline worked as counsel at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, at the Office of the Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and at a speciality legal aid clinic serving low-income seniors. Pauline also has experience working in the heath regulatory sector at the Ontario College of Pharmacists and the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario.

Broadcast time across Canada (Wednesday, November 16, 2022):
PT: 12:30–2 pm
MT: 1:30–3 pm
CT: 2:30–4 pm
ET: 3:30–5 pm
AT: 4:30–6 pm
NT: 5–6:30 pm

NOTE
Group viewing is recommended in a room (or rooms) with audio-visual equipment sufficient to accommodate the number of registrants expected at your location. A link to the webinar platform and a password will be sent by email  24-48 hours prior to the event. It is recommended to test the platform beforehand. Group should register individually at the rate of $40/participant (CIAJ members) or $55/participant (Non Members)

Contact

For further information, please contact the Program Coordinator, Mary Plagakis
Tel.: 514-731-2855, extension 4
Email: mary.plagakis@ciaj-icaj.ca