Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
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The Honourable Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (born 1963 in Norway House, Manitoba) is a Canadian lawyer and advocate for children's rights, and a former judge of the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan.
In November 2006, Dr. Turpel-Lafond was appointed British Columbia's first Representative for Children and Youth, for a five-year term. The Representative for Children and Youth is an independent officer of the B.C. Legislature.
Time Magazine has twice bestowed honours upon Turpel-Lafond, naming her one of the '100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow' in 1994, and in 1999 as one of the 'Top 20 Canadian Leaders for the 21st Century'.
The youngest of four girls born to a Cree father and Scottish mother on a reserve in northern Manitoba, she grew up in poverty, endured harsh physical mistreatment, and was surrounded by domestic violence and alcoholism in her home -- a mirror of the upbringing experienced by many of the children she now encounters.(The Victoria Times-Colonist, August 5, 2007)(The Globe and Mail, August 7, 2007)
By age 16, she was already at Ottawa’s Carleton University, gravitating from math and science to politics, philosophy and eventually the law.(The Victoria Times-Colonist, August 5, 2007). Turpel-Lafond holds a bachelor of arts degree from Carleton University, a law degree from Osgoode Hall, a master’s degree in international law from Cambridge University and a doctorate of law from Harvard Law School. She also holds a certificate in the international and comparative law of human rights from the University of Strasbourg in France.
A member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, at age 35 Turpel-Lafond was the first Treaty Indian to be named to the bench in Saskatchewan. She was the Administrative Judge for Saskatoon, involved in the administration of the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan in relation to access to justice, judicial independence projects, technology and public outreach.
She has also worked as a criminal law judge in youth and adult courts, which led her to work at developing partnerships to better serve the needs of young people in the justice system, particularly sexually exploited children and youth, and children and youth with disabilities, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Prior to her judicial appointment, Turpel-Lafond was a lawyer in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan and a tenured professor of law at Dalhousie University Faculty of Law. She taught law at the University of Toronto, the University of Notre Dame and other universities, and held the position of Aboriginal Scholar at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria law schools.
As a practicing lawyer, she appeared before all levels of Courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada. Turpel-Lafond has worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and served as a key legal and constitutional adviser to aboriginal leaders. (The Victoria Times-Colonist, August 5, 2007). She has been touted for a seat on the Supreme Court of Canada. (The Globe and Mail, August 7, 2007).
Turpel-Lafond lives with her husband George, who is a former Vice-Chief and Tribal Chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council, their son and three daughters, (including twins), in Victoria, B.C., Canada.
“People are very resilient, children are resilient, and support for children makes a massive difference,” Turpel-Lafond says. “Look at my life.” (The Victoria Times-Colonist, August 5, 2007).
