The Canadian Bar Association welcomes the announcement that its nominee, Dr. Signa Daum Shanks, has been appointed to the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments.
Dr. Daum Shanks is a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and serves on the OBA Board of Directors. She is an accomplished legal scholar who has written extensively on Indigenous peoples and the legal profession. Dr. Daum Shanks, who is Métis, was born and raised in Saskatchewan.
The CBA has called for the government to appoint more Black, Indigenous and People of Colour to bench, and to the judicial advisory committees that make recommendations for those appointments. In both cases BIPOC representatives add a knowledge base and a new perspective that can only enhance the delivery of justice in Canada.
Naming Dr. Daum Shanks to the board that advises government on appointments to the country’s highest court is an important step toward the objective of a making the judiciary more representative of the people it serves and furthers the journey to reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the rest of Canada.