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CCCA_V6No1_Profiles-FIN_CCCA_V1No1_Profile-FIN.qxd 2/13/12 9:25 PM Page 21 Profile Nathalie Des Rosiers: By Paula Kulig The front line A passionate new voice for civil rights. “The CCLA is very well known in the that opportunity for the organization,” she quickly. Because some of our monitors got halls of Parliament and the Supreme says,adding that the group’s work was in no arrested during the night, we did not have Court, and that’s because of the work that way self-serving. to wait for media reports to know that Alan did — painstaking work — over “She was at the protests, she was at the something was going on. So I think it cre- many years,” says Jameel Jaffer, the meetings, she was doing the media [inter- ated a way in which we were speaking to Canadian-born deputy legal director of the views] in a way that was articulate and the media.” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) unrelenting in terms of calling to account Perhaps Des Rosiers’s comfort in deal- in NewYork and a CCLA board member. the authorities who had overstepped ing with the media comes from her early Des Rosiers, whose first career choice their power. So I think her leadership on desire to be a journalist and her job writ- was journalism before she earned law that issue was really admirable,” says ing news for CBC Radio-Canada. Her degrees from the Université de Montréal Milne, who is also an executive member father, who was a notary, recommended and Harvard University,was seen as some- of the Canadian Bar Association’s that she attend law school, saying that if one who could usher in a new era at the National Constitutional and Human she wanted to work as a journalist in CCLA. The G-20 protests signalled her Rights Law Section. Quebec, she needed to understand the arrival as the passionate new voice of Before the G-20, Des Rosiers had law and the Constitution. the association. received word about a new piece of legis- Des Rosiers enrolled in law school, “I do think that Nathalie has brought lation: the Public Works Protection Act. Her earning law degrees from the Université new energy, that she has brought a kind team discovered that the Ontario govern- de Montréal and Harvard University. Law of creativity to the project,” Jaffer says. ment had quietly introduced a regulation school, she says, was “a real revelation,” “She has tackled a whole slew of new that designated a large swath of down- and after receiving her LL.B., she clerked issues, and she has done so at a time townToronto — the streets and sidewalks for Supreme Court of Canada Justice when civil liberties arguments are diffi- within the perimeter of the G-20 securi- Julien Chouinard in 1982-83 during the cult to make and have to be made in a ty zone — as a “public work,” giving Quebec veto reference. challenging environment.” police wide powers to conduct warrant- While Des Rosiers says that “it was An event like the G-20 “kind of galva- less searches and deny entry to people really exciting to be working on that nizes people” and can serve as a wake-up who ventured into the zone. case,” she didn’t speak English and soon call to the public, says Cheryl Milne, exec- “We were shocked, I have to say, realized the importance of learning the utive director of the David Asper Centre and so called the media,” she says. It language. After picking up some English for Constitutional Rights at the University resulted in a storm of criticism directed at during her clerkship, she moved on to of Toronto’s law faculty. the government. Harvard to study in what was essentially a PAUL EEKHOFF she didn’t step back from it, she didn’t hesi- the ground, and therefore we were able to foreign language. “Within six weeks, I “We had decided to have monitors on “What was so great about Nathalie is that started dreaming in English. That’s what they say, that the appropriate immersion see what was going on and do a report very tate, she was there and so was able to seize PRINTEMPS 2012 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 21