Cory Wanless Nominated for Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada 2020 —
Cory Wanless was recently nominated for Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada in the Human Rights, Advocacy and Criminal category. Vote for him here, conveniently located at the bottom of the fourth page: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CL-Top25MostInfluential-2020 . Voting closes June 5, 2020.
From his nomination:
“Wanless was counsel in Maxwell-Crawford v TTC, the case where a young Black man was tackled to the ground by three TTC officers, without cause, causing the plaintiff serious injury. The systemic racism of the TTC was broadly exposed through this action, and it was ultimately acknowledged publicly by the TTC chairperson in an apology that was included in the settlement of the case. Since the case was resolved, the TTC has commenced a system-wide anti-racism plan and has instituted training aimed at tackling racial bias among its employees. As a fearless human rights champion, he pressed relentlessly for this huge breakthrough in addressing racism at the TTC, which has resulted in a sea change in the organization. He is also co-counsel in the ground-breaking Choc v Hudbay. He recently successfully added claims to the pleading, asserting that Hudbay is liable for the acts of local police and military who participated in the assaults on Indigenous people at the mine-site. He recently appeared as counsel for the IHRP, intervening in the SCC in the Nevsun case, which addressed the ability of victims of human rights abuses in Eritrea to bring suit in Canada. The arguments advanced by him for IHRP that customary international law forms part of the law of Canada were accepted by the Supreme Court of Canada. This was a precedent-setting decision that opened the door wider for victims of human rights abuse by companies whose parent companies are Canadian to seek redress in Canadian courts.”
