S2E6: McGill Food Law Society

This spring and summer have kept Glenford away from the studio. You know, the little things: a public lecture at the LLM Food Law program LUISS in Rome, a Roundtable with the Food and Drug Law Society at UChicago School of Law, and getting married. Somehow it’s already fall and we're just now wrapping up Season Two of Welcome to the Food Court, which will start up again in the new year. In the mean time, it's time for the 2017 edition of Food Law and Policy in Canada conference, called Taking Stock. Last year, Glenford co-organized the conference with Jamie Baxter in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where it was hosted by Schulich School of Law. This year, our hosts are the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and it will be held from November 2-4. We have something like 75 speakers from government, industry, universities, and practicing lawyers to speak on many aspects of this evolving area. Exciting stuff! Come check it out – it’s going to be a dynamic place to do some critical thinking about lawyers and law as it relates to food systems (I think there are a handful of tickets left as at the time of posting).

This is an episode Glenford recorded last March when he visited McGill Law School with Amélie Gouin, who does food law work at the law firm BLG Montreal. They got to do a food law edition of scared straight by trying to answer the question: “is it of value to pursue a career in this area?” Amelie and Glenford came to speak on the practice of law: what food law looks like as a career, on the ground, as practicing lawyers.

In this episode Glenford references some mighty fine folks, who we would like to shout-out and link to on the podcast blogpost: Shout-out Camille Labchuk, who is presenting at our conference in Ottawa this week. Shout out podcast alumna Carly Dunster, formerly a member of the Toronto Food Policy council. Shout out to Everdale and Black Creek Community Farm, two teaching farms – one urban and one rural – for which Glenford has acted as a volunteer director for the past few years. Shout out to McGill’s Sarah Berger-Richardson, who will be in a future episode. Shout out to the Norton Rose Food Law group and Sara Zborovski, Kathy Krug, et al, who are heading up a food law and agribusiness section at the Alberta CBA. Shout out to Steve Dolinsky and The Feed Podcast – click here for Steve’s episode where he recorded us tasting through some remarkable Markham and Scarborough eats and carrying out instructions from Suresh Doss. A special shout-out to Kim Thuy, who pushed Glenford to become a lawyer when he was a young waiter at her restaurant in Montreal.

Lastly, Shout-out to Jess Cytryn and Talia Ralph of the McGill Food Law Society for arranging a jammed room and a hyper-engaged group of people who wanted to know more from Glenford and Amélie about food and law.

Music: "Hey, Good Lookin'" by Carl Perkins, A Country Salute to Hank Williams, fair use; and, "Pod Mix" by Shane MacPherson, used under licence.