2021-2022 Plenary Sessions

Welcome Session/Orientation

Date: Sep. 15, 2021

Post-Election Plenary

Date: Sep. 22, 2021
Speakers: Sunil Johal, Ira Wells, David Wright, the Hon. Kathleen Wynne

Date: Sep. 29, 201
Speaker: Bob Phillips

Bob Phillips (Great Bear) is a non-Status Urban Mi’kmaq.

Although a traditional Pipe Carrier, Bob is also very contemporary and holds a PhD in Indigenous Studies from Trent University. He also holds an MA in Fine Art History from York University. Bob Phillips also spent ten years as host of the Aboriginal Voices Radio Arts Review show discussing art, culture and contemporary issues with community members from across Canada and the Far North.

Date: Oct. 6, 2021
Speaker: Mary Scourboutakos

Dr. Mary Scourboutakos completed her HBSc at Victoria College followed by a PhD in Nutritional Sciences, and MD at the University of Toronto. Mary is a former Vanier Scholar whose research has informed policy debates at Queen’s Park and Toronto’s City Hall. In addition, she is an avid science communicator who is devoted to spreading the word about the importance of eating-well as a means to live optimally. Mary is currently a resident at Women’s College Hospital and she plans to become a family doctor focused on nutrition and disease prevention.

Revitalizing Democracy: How Can We Address Declining Confidence in Liberal Democratic Institutions?

Date: Oct. 20, 2021
Speakers: Suzanne Cowan, the Hon. Jim Cowan, Bhutila Karpoche, moderated by Kofi Hope

 

 

The Unusual Thing in the Room

Date: Oct. 27, 2021
Speaker: Michael Winter

Michael Winter has published two collections of stories, five novels, and one work of non-fiction. He has won the CBC short story contest and the Engel/Findley award. His novel, Minister Without Portfolio, was a Canada Reads finalist and he’s been twice nominated for the Giller Prize. His most recent book, Into the Blizzard, sets out to retrace the steps of the Newfoundland Regiment during the first world war. He divides his time between Toronto and Newfoundland.

How children’s lies led to the invention of a new technology for artificial intelligence

Date: Nov. 3, 2021
Speaker: Kang Lee

Dr. Kang Lee is a professor & Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in developmental neuroscience at OISE, University of Toronto. For over two decades, he has used behavioral and neuroscience methods (e.g., EEG, fMRI, fNIRS) to examine the emergence and development of social cognition and social behavior and the underlying neural mechanisms. More specifically, he has focused on the seemingly maladaptive behaviors such as lying, cheating, and racial bias as children reach different developmental milestones. Dr. Lee has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers that have been cited over 18,000 times with a H-index of 70 and i10-index of 258. His research has been funded by funding agencies such as NIH and NSF in the US, NSERC and SSHRC in Canada, and NSFC in China. He was also a TED speaker with his talk receiving over 11 million views on TED.com and 8 million views on YouTube. Dr. Lee’s work has contributed to the law reforms in Canada. Since 2006, criminal courts in Canada must use a procedure based on his research to qualify children as witnesses to testify. Dr. Lee’s work has been widely reported in news outlets such as New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC. His work has been featured in several major science documentaries including Nature of Things: Born to be Good (CBC), Babies (Netflix), and Through the Wormhole (Morgan Freeman Productions). He even received the Ig Noble Prize in Neuroscience in 2014. Dr. Lee is also a co-inventor of Transdermal Optical Imaging, a novel contactless technology that uses advanced biosignal processing and machine learning to decode facial blood flow from videos captured by conventional digital cameras. Using this technology, he has developed computational models that are capable of decoding physiological and psychological activities. He holds several patents that use this technology to detect heart rate, stress, blood pressure, and other physiological activities and biomarkers.

25 Knocks In The Clock

Date: Nov. 17, 2021
Speaker: Canisia Lubrin

Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor, critic and teacher. Her books include the awards-nominated debut Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, ‘17), Code Noir (Knopf, ’23). Her sophomore poetry collection, The Dyzgraphxst (M&S, ‘20), was listed for nine book prizes, including winner of the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Griffin Poetry Prize, Derek Walcott Prize, and finalist for the Governor General’s Award and Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Lubrin is the inaugural Shaftesbury Writer in Residence at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart, Lubrin studied at York University and the University of Guelph, where she is the incoming MFA in Creative Writing Coordinator and an Assistant Professor in the School of English & Theatre Studies. In 2021 Lubrin was awarded a Windham-Campbell prize in Poetry from Yale University.

Pelham Edgar Distinguished Visitor in the Humanities

Date: Nov. 24, 2021
Speaker: Eleanor Wachtel

Eleanor Wachtel has earned a reputation as one of the world’s best literary interviewers during her more than 30 years as host of Writers & Company on CBC Radio. Five books of her interviews have been published, including Random Illuminations, a collection of reflections, correspondence and conversations with Carol Shields which won the Independent Publisher Book Award; Original Minds, inspired by a series devoted to extraordinary writers from the fields of art, science, economics, anthropology and social policy who have made a difference to the way we understand the world; and most recently, The Best of Writers & Company. She also co-founded and hosted Wachtel on the Arts, featuring conversations with filmmakers, composers, architects, artists, etc. And she's the host of TIFF's popular Books on Film series, now in its second decade. Wachtel has earned numerous accolades for her contributions to Canadian cultural life: nine honorary degrees and Officer of the Order of Canada.

Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro has called Wachtel "one of the very finest interviewers of authors I've come across anywhere in the world."

And John le Carre told her, at the end of one of their conversations: "You do it better than anyone I know."

The Exploration Mindset

Date: Jan. 12, 2022
Speaker: Jill Heinerth

Jill Heinerth is an underwater explorer, writer, photographer, speaker, and filmmaker. A pioneer of technical rebreather diving, she has led expeditions into icebergs in Antarctica, volcanic lava tubes, and submerged caves worldwide. Jill is the first Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Her memoir, INTO THE PLANET, has been lauded by the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Magazine, and the New York Times. Her children’s book THE AQUANAUT is a Blue Ribbon Selection for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Jill is a Fellow of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame, Underwater Academy of Arts and Sciences, Women Divers Hall of Fame, and the Explorers Club, which awarded her with the William Beebe Award for ocean exploration.

Judy LaMarsh Lecture Celebrating Women in Leadership

Date: Jan. 19, 2022
Speaker: Jill Andrew

Dr. Jill Andrew, PhD is the MPP for Toronto-St. Paul’s. She was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as an Ontario NDP Member of Provincial Parliament in 2018. Jill serves as the Culture Critic, Heritage Critic and the Women's Issues Critic for the Official Opposition. Jill is the first Queer Black person to be elected to the Ontario Legislature and reportedly in any legislature across Canada.

Jill is also a founding member of the Ontario NDP Ontario Black Caucus a first of its kind in the province. Since in office Jill has hosted several initiatives including culture and arts deputations and the creation of an ad hoc arts and culture advisory council, a women's issues listening tour, Ontario’s first Eating Disorders Awareness Week roundtable, several youth civic engagement events and housing, education, health care, gender equity, and environment summits among other initiatives to stay connected with community. Early in her term and in response to significant cuts to culture, Jill tabled motions calling for the Ford government to reinstate funding previously cut back into libraries, the Ontario Music Fund and the Ontario Arts Council.

Recognizing the significant value of provincial funding to cultural workers and entrepreneurs, Jill has demanded that the province recognize comedy and fashion as part of the culture sector therefore making provincial funding opportunities accessible to creators in those fields as well as a motion calling for financial support for small businesses such as those located in “Little Jamaica” that have been disproportionately hit by disruptions caused by transit construction and COVID-19. In response to the pandemic and the increase in food insecurity felt by many community members in Toronto-St.Paul’s during this period, Jill called for a provincial food strategy.

Jill has also co-sponsored legislation demanding a universal protocol for quality and consistent care for Ontarians, predominantly Black and racialized, living with Sickle Cell Disease and she tabled a motion in 2019 demanding an intersectional gender equity strategy be adopted by the Ford government to ensure every piece of legislation is analyzed through an intersectional gender lens to evaluate its impact on women-identifying community members and other equity-seeking community groups made most marginalized by systemic discrimination and institutional violence. Her first Private Member's Bill, Bill 61, passed in December last year, creating an Eating Disorders Awareness Week the first week of February across Ontario.

Jill was named First Runner-Up in NOW Magazine’s Reader’s Choice best MPP vote in both 2019 and 2020.

Outside of politics, Jill is also co-founder of Body Confidence Canada and an award-winning educator, equity, human rights and body-image advocate. Jill’s co-edited anthology: Body Stories: In and Out and With and Through Fat was recently published through Demeter Press in 2020.

She holds a Child & Youth Worker diploma from Humber College, a Masters’ degree in women and gender studies from the University of Toronto New College, her undergraduate education through York University, a BEd from York University and a PhD from York University’s Faculty of Education. Jill's dissertation, “Put Together” Black Women’s Body Stories in Toronto: (Ad) dressing Identity and the Threads that Bind explores the ‘trifecta of anti-Black racism, sexism and fat hatred experienced by Black women and their accommodation and resistance of dominant body ideals through fashion and dress, activism, self-valuation and social interactions.

She is a community co-owner of Glad Day Bookshop – the world’s oldest LGBT bookstore and has been an avid volunteer and donor supporting organizations across the GTA that prioritize Black and racialized communities, youth, women, the arts, LGBTQ2+ communities and chronic health advocacy among others.

Jill is also a graduate of the Women Win TO political training series and in her own words she has described herself as a Black, Fat, Queer, Feline-Loving feminist passionate about documenting, celebrating and advocating for people's rights to their own bodies, human rights and their right to self-definition and self-valuation. Jill lives in Toronto-St.Paul’s with her partner and their cats Josephine Baker and Dorothy Dandridge.

The Business & Ethics of Sustainable Forest Management in Central Ontario

Date: Feb. 2, 2022
Speaker: Malcom Cecil-Cockwell

Malcolm Cockwell is the Managing Director of Haliburton Forest, a multi-use private land stewardship company, which owns more than 100,000 acres of timberland in central Ontario, manages 500,000 acres more, and was the first company in Canada to be certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council. Through Haliburton Forest, Malcolm oversees diverse land operations, including an integrated Forest Products division and a diverse Tourism & Recreation division. In addition to his work at Haliburton Forest, he is a Registered Professional Forester (RPF), represents Haliburton Forest at the Ontario Forest Industries Association, and serves as the Chairman of Acadian Timber Corp, a leading supplier of primary forest products in eastern North America. He holds a B.Sc. in Forest Conservation from the University of Toronto, and is a PhD candidate at the same institution’s Faculty of Forestry. 

Program Advising and Showcase

Date: Feb. 9, 2022

Thomas MacKay from the Victoria College Office of the Registrar and Academic Advising will provide important information about program enrolment, covering topics like understanding Degree Explorer, program requirements, and the meaning of Open and Limited programs. Ira Wells, Academic Programs Director at Victoria College, will also discuss the exciting upper-year program options offered by Vic!

During our post-plenary social, the Program Coordinators will be hosting break-out rooms to answer your questions and provide more information!

The Human Trial

Date: Feb. 16, 2022
Speaker: Lisa Hepner

Lisa Hepner Vic 9T3 and her husband Guy run Vox Pop Films, an LA-based production company specializing in non-fiction content and commercials. For the last 25 years, Lisa has produced a variety of films and programs for Sony Pictures Classics, HBO, A&E, PBS, Lifetime, Discovery, MTV, TLC and the CBC. She has produced for acclaimed directors Jonathan Demme, Michael Apted, Julie Taymor, and Lisa F. Jackson, among others. In 2003, she co-directed the feature doc, WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINES. Shot in Afghanistan, Argentina, Burundi, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the US, the documentary profiles the unheralded work of women peacebuilders and was premiered at the UN in 2003 and aired on PBS in 2004. Her upcoming documentary The Human Trial, a verité film, follows the epic quest to cure type 1 diabetes. Lisa has lived with type 1 diabetes for 30 years, and vividly remembers Michael Bliss, her esteemed professor at the University of Toronto, explaining the complicated story behind the discovery of insulin.

The Future of Work in Canada

Date: Mar. 2, 2022
Speaker: Sunil Johal

Sunil Johal is a policy expert with a track record of executive-level experience addressing challenging issues. He is a frequently sought-after advisor to governments, international organizations, media, the business community and non-profits.

In his current role he is the Vice President, Public Policy at the CSA Group where he is responsible for building and leading a new team to tackle challenging policy issues in collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders. He is also the David and Ann Wilson Professor in Public Policy and Society at Victoria College, University of Toronto.

In 2021, he served as Special Advisor to the Deputy Ministers at Employment and Social Development Canada, where he led the department's medium-term planning and transition activities.

Sunil was Policy Director at the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre from 2012 to 2019, where he led the Centre’s research activities and established himself as a thought leader on issues such as the future of work and the implications of disruptive technologies.

In February 2019, he was named Chair of the Expert Panel on Modern Labour Standards by the federal Minister of Labour. The panel provided advice on issues such as the federal minimum wage and right to disconnect.

Before joining the University of Toronto, Sunil held senior executive and policy roles with the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Ministries of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs and federal Treasury Board Secretariat. He joined the federal civil service through the Recruitment of Policy Leaders initiative in 2003.

Sunil is frequently invited to speak at conferences in Canada and abroad. He has contributed expert commentary and advice to a range of organizations and media outlets, including the G-20, World Economic Forum, Brookings Institution, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, Washington Post, Guardian and OECD.

Sunil has taught undergraduate, master's and executive education courses at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University since 2009. He is a Fellow of the Public Policy Forum and Brookfield Institute. He holds degrees from LSE, Osgoode Hall Law School and the University of Western Ontario.

A Meandering Path Towards Academia

Date: Mar. 9, 2022
Speaker: Angus McQuibban

After completing an undergraduate degree and M.Sc. (Biochemistry) at the University of Toronto, Angus McQuibban moved to Vancouver to pursue a Ph.D. (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology). His work focused on identifying novel substrates for a class of proteases (MMPs) that contribute to cancer metastasis. He discovered that inflammatory chemokines were a new family of substrates for this enzyme family. After completing his Ph.D. he moved to England for his PDF at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He continued my work of proteolysis, but this time working with a new family of proteases, called Rhomboids. There he revealed their important activity within mitochondria. He started his lab ‘back home’ in 2005, and since, his research interests have focused on mitochondrial quality control, and how dysregulation leads to human disease. His lab currently balances basic science projects with translational studies and small molecule screening to develop novel therapeutics in neurodegenerative disease, and he is also the James and Ann Nethercott Professor at Victoria College.

Why are you even here? One woman’s reflection on her political journey

Date: Mar. 16, 2022
Speaker: The Hon. Kathleen Wynne

Kathleen Wynne was Ontario’s 25th Premier. She was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003 as the MPP for Don Valley West, and she became the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in January 2013.

Kathleen has dedicated her professional life to building a better province for the people of Ontario. She and her government were guided by the values and principles that knit this province together: fairness, diversity, collaboration and creativity.

Kathleen has served as Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Education and Minister of Agriculture and Food.

In her role as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Kathleen worked in partnership with First Nations communities to address issues such as mining development, First Nations land claims, and improving quality of life for Indigenous people living off-reserve through affordable housing and recreation programs.

As Minister of Education, Kathleen led the government’s efforts to reduce class sizes, implement full-day kindergarten and provide more opportunities for high school students to reach their full potential.

Kathleen has served as a Public School Trustee in Toronto. She has led citizens’ groups in a number of grassroots community projects, and has played a major role as an organizer and facilitator. This experience has contributed to her results-based approach to life, government and community.

Kathleen is currently the Hon. Newton W. Rowell Professor at Victoria College and an instructor in the Chambers stream of the Vic One program.

Kathleen has three adult children, Chris, Jessie and Maggie, and four grandchildren, Olivia, Claire, Hugh and Violet. Before moving to Alliston, Ontario, Kathleen and her partner Jane lived in North Toronto for more than 30 years.

Finding a Career Path that Brings You Joy--5 Good Ideas From a Vic One Grad Whose Career is *Entirely* Unrelated to Her Degree(s)

Date: Mar. 23, 2022
Speaker: Rebecca Harrison

Rebecca Harrison is a proud supporter of the Canadian arts and culture sector, and identifies particularly as a community arts advocate, connector, musician and wordsmith. She currently holds the position of Executive Director at Unity Charity, a national non-profit organization that uses Hip Hop art forms to develop resilience among underserved youth and artists–a position she secured at the age of 28. Leading a team of 17 staff and 65 artists, and managing the operations and strategy of the multi-million dollar organization, Rebecca works alongside the Canadian Hip Hop community to develop programming, curate events, and create accessible opportunities for young people to engage with and grow through Hip Hop.

Her career has been spent working with and for young and emerging artists, artist educators and arts organizations, a professional path inspired by her own deep connection to art and music. With Record Label / Artist Management company, Coalition Music, she delivered music and music business education to youth from across Toronto’s priority neighborhoods and First Nations reservations in Ontario. Alongside the City of Toronto and Manifesto Community Projects, she coordinated Arts Lab, a pilot project that provided mentorship and support to artists from underserved communities in the City. Prior to Unity she worked with Business for the Arts, where she scaled a mentorship program for arts organizations across Canada from 50 participants in one province, to 500 participants in 8 provinces, in less than two years.

Rebecca is also proud of the side projects she’s a part of–she was invited to be a founding member of an emerging, black-led music publishing collective (Be More Entertainment), acts as an accessibility support to a neurodiverse multi-disciplinary artist, and provides pro bono funding and grant strategy consultations to emerging artists from across Canada. She is also a volunteer with Jumpstart Refugee Services, where she offers career and employability mentorship to newcomers in Canada.

Date: Mar. 30, 2022