The following is an interview with Professor Swan conducted by Emily Papsin, Editor-in-Chief of this paper from 2020-2021, now an articling student at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. It was first published in Issue 3 of Volume 92 on 9 October 2018. Please enjoy. – Tomislav Miloš, Editor-in-Chief When is your birthday? 10th of October. In two weeks I turn 80. How do you feel about that? Some...
Dear Osgoode — This issue is our last as co-editors-in-chief. We are excited to pass the baton to three of our senior editors: Tomislav Milos, Lauren Graham, and Alice Liu. They will be taking over the management of Obiter shortly, and we are confident that, in their hands, the paper will remain a forum for expression on issues that matter to the Osgoode community. We know, of course, that they...
I’ve been writing for Obiter for all of my three years at Osgoode, and I decided pretty early on that I would write like I was speaking to a friend, and not like I was trying to win a Pulitzer. For the most part, it’s been rewarding. For the most part, I feel like I’ve done what I said I would. While I’m sad that this is the last time you’ll need to see, read, or skip over...
Growing up, Luke didn’t feel Indigenous at all. Most of his family lived on or near the reserve on Scugog Island quite close to Lindsay, Ontario, where he was born. “We’d go out to res very often, but it never felt like an Indigenous community, it was just my family,” he tells me as we sit on opposite sides of a picnic bench on a cold November morning in front of his studio in downtown Kitchener...
In our last issue of the 2019-2020 academic year, I wrote a note on how the COVID-19 pandemic would, beyond its obvious devastation, leave the world a better place. This time last term, I wrote about the ways in which our world needed to change, and how it seemed like it would. I wasn’t the first, nor the last, but it was the only thing important enough to start the year off by saying. What the...
Understandably, there is a sea of conflicting information going around about the safety, efficacy, and reliability of all of the available COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Much of that uncertainty stems from the novel scientific methods being used to generate immunity in two of the current contenders being administered and bought on the public market. In an effort to clarify some of the complex...
Winged Words Story #4 When I moved to London in 2017, I knew nothing except the address of my empty, waiting apartment, and the name of my supervisor at work. Paris had signed the first email I was ever sent with a meme of the Queen of England waving through the screen, and beyond that, I had absolutely no idea what my future boss would be like. I walked into my office for the first time, heavily...
Winged Words Series Story # 3 When I was 14, I visited my grandparents’ Seattle home to help my grandmother out after a hip replacement. I don’t remember much about the trip, only that I saw a guy walking up a very steep hill in the middle of the city wearing a raccoon tail as an accessory, and that American Costco sells churros. My only regret is that I was too young to try the city’s...
Winged Words Series Story #2 In 2015, I spent the summer hostel hopping, allowing the cost of my flights to determine my destination. Who could turn down €20 airfare to Stockholm? Just imagine the least glamorous way to get from point A to B, and then add in the fact that most of my clothes at the time had been purchased at Primark, and were only washed in shallow sinks – once a week...
As some of you already know, most of the time I write about love. Because of that, I spent a lot of time this summer staring at a blank screen, waiting for the right words to spill from my fingers. They never did. There was not much to either sew or harvest. Imagine if we had actually kept track of the ways we’d spoiled our earth and its residents. I have also said that I cannot pretend to have...
Winged Words Story # 1 In 2017, I visited an old friend in New York, to see her city through her eyes and to take advantage of her kindness and free couch. I fell in love with it and vowed to return again in some capacity, if one day I could. It’s the only American city I can see myself calling home one day, there’s something about its vibrance and dynamism, there’s a magic in being lost in a sea...
Welcome to Obiter 2020-2021 When I joined Obiter in 2018, I had a simple goal; write about law school as little as possible, and remind people that behind their academic veneer, they were far more than just students. I wrote to show people that who they were before law school was someone still worth being, that these legal identities prescribed for us were not as all-consuming as they felt. ...
It’s probably too early for optimism, but our next issue is in September… The truth is I am probably jumping the gun on talking about some of the takeaways of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are still people suffering because they contracted it, because others were careless, because people simply lived their lives without knowing that they were a risk. In some sense, the virus is an example of...
My oldest step-sister and I have always been close. Maybe it’s because we’re both the “eldest” but mostly, I think we’re just wired in similar ways. In a few years, she’ll finish her PhD in Social Work in Calgary. Until then, her trips to Toronto and ours together are the best kind of time we spend. Professionally, she’s spent a good chunk of her adult life helping patients and their families...
Hello Osgoode! Grades release is a tumultuous time for students for a whole host of reasons. Whether you are deciding on what to do with your summer, choosing whether to do the 1L recruit, or wondering about clerkships to clinics, OPSC wanted to remind you that we’re here to help you navigate all of that no matter where your grades are. We’ll be sharing stories from alumni throughout...
Why do it? Why shouldn’t you? Last year around this time, it was all anyone could talk about. Are you applying, where to, what are your grades like, do you think you want to do corporate law, etc. Everyone has an understandable and deep personal desire to be the best, to stand out from their peers, and send a message that their choice to go to law school was the right one...
It’s becoming less and less common for 25-year-olds to say that they grew up listening to Bob Dylan. And that makes a lot of sense—he’s definitely not been as prolific in recent years as he was in the prime of his career, but his music and poetry shaped the generation preceding ours. For some of us, his gravelly voice was the soundtrack to our childhood. My dad was a touring musician before he...
When was the last time you really failed? As law students, we are trained to treat that question like a beast that we must learn to both tame and strategically unleash. Failure becomes a tool we use to make an impression; it’s not about what impression failure left on us. It’s a hot topic in interviews, but seems to be denied in contexts outside of that. I mostly hear about failure being raised...
A Refresher Dear readers, Obiter Dicta is deeply committed to freedom of expression. We make an effort to present divergent viewpoints on a number of contentious issues. We also welcome responses – particularly written ones – by readers. It may be self-evident that the management of the paper does not endorse all of the viewpoints expressed in our pages, but we feel the need to reiterate that...
Dear 1Ls, You’ve all heard the main bulk of the warnings about law school. You’ve probably been hearing them for months. It’s going to be hard; it’s going to be a lot of work; you’re graded against your classmates so you’d better find out who your friends are; something about Socrates. You’ll have to sacrifice a lot of time and money. Sometimes it’ll feel like it’s not worth it, but somehow it...
Hey Osgoode! We’re OPSC, your student-student support network. We’re here to support you throughout your academic journey – and beyond, through our alumni support network. Get in touch with us if you want to speak to someone who has had similar experiences as you, or if you want to talk to someone about concerns that go beyond academics. We’re a team of empathetic and...
Dr. Joan Gilmour Where were you born, and when did you move to Toronto? I was born in St. John, New Brunswick, and we moved to Toronto when I was very young. We were part of the maritime exodus to look for work. My dad moved my family here for a job. How does the Toronto of today differ from the Toronto you arrived to? I grew up in the suburbs, so it felt very quiet. And downtown, where I live...