March 1, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
She has been doing it for 21 years – holding a breakfast to encourage young woman that they can and should play a major role in the society they live in.
There are leaders in Burlington today who got to where they are today because they took part in one of those breakfasts.
This Friday, at the Holiday Inn, Paddy Torsney will introduce Senator Kim Pate as the guest speaker.
Tickets, $17, are available only at A Different Drummer – move quickly this event should sell out.
Before she was appointed a Senator Kim Pate was with the Elizabeth Fry Society, an organization that advocated for women who had gotten caught up in the criminal justice system.
Senator Pate’s curriculum vita sets out all the work she has done and the recognition she has been given. What it doesn’t do is get to the character of the woman. She is fearless and has worked tirelessly to bring about badly needed changes in the lives of women who have experienced marginalization, discrimination and oppression.
Senator Pate is a tough cookie when she has to be. There are a lot of men in senior positions in the justice system who skirt the Senator.
Pate was appointed to the Senate in 2016. First and foremost, she is the mother of Michael and Madison, as well as a nationally renowned advocate who has spent the last 35 years working in and around the legal and penal systems of Canada.
Senator Pate graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1984 with honours in the Clinical Law Programme and has completed post graduate work in the area of forensic mental health. She was the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) from January 1992 until her appointment to the Senate,
Prior to her work with CAEFS, she worked with youth and men in a number of capacities with the local John Howard Society in Calgary, as well as the national office. She has developed and taught Prison Law, Human Rights and Social Justice and Defending Battered Women on Trial courses at the Faculties of Law at the University of Ottawa, Dalhousie University and the University of Saskatchewan. She also occupied the Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 2014 and 2015.
The Senator is widely credited as the driving force behind the Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, headed by Justice Louise Arbour. During the Inquiry, she supported women as they aired their experiences and was a critical resource and witness in the Inquiry itself. She also persuaded the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to initiate the Self-Defence Review and appoint the Honourable Madam Justice Lynn Ratushny to review the convictions and sentences of women jailed for using lethal force to defend themselves and/or their children against abusive men.
Pate is a member of the Order of Canada, a recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case, the Canadian Bar Associations’s Bertha Wilson Touchstone Award, and five honourary doctorates (Law Society of Upper Canada, University of Ottawa, Carleton University, St. Thomas University and Wilfred Laurier University) and numerous other awards.
This is not an event to be missed.