We’re very fortunate this year to have the Executive Director and another lawyer in the Human Rights Clinic of the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS) come to present a workshop this year, and we hope you will be able to make it to Advocacy: Equitable Access to Education, our 4th annual conference held March 29th and 30th at the Civic Hotel in Surrey, BC.
Tickets available here:
Equitable Access to Education Conference
Aleem Bharmal is the Executive Director and a human rights lawyer at CLAS. He has practiced law at CLAS since 2002 and been its Executive Director since 2007. Prior to that, he was an associate lawyer practicing employment law with a large firm in Toronto.
Aleem graduated from Trinity College, University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy in 1991 and obtained his law degree from the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia in 1994. He was called to the Bars of both BC and Ontario in 1995 and 1997, respectively.
Aleem has been a presenter on human rights, social justice and access to justice issues and is currently Co-Chair of both the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch (“CBABC”) Human Rights and Social Justice Sections, on the Executive of the Administrative Law Section, a member of the Government Relations Committee, and a volunteer mentor at the Allard School of Law, UBC.
Aleem is also past Chair of the CBABC Access to Justice Committee as well as the Equality Committee at both the provincial and national levels. He is also a past member of the CBABC Judicial Advisory Committee and Truth & Reconciliation Working Group as well as the Law Society of BC Equity and Diversity Committee.
In late 2015, Aleem and his co-counsel, Clea Parfitt, won a very lengthy, high-profile racial discrimination case involving Indo-Canadian veterinarians: Brar v. BCVMA and Osborne (No. 22), 2015 BCHRT 151. In early 2016, Aleem was involved with other non-profit legal groups and concerned lawyers in the launch of an Islamophobia Legal Assistance Hotline currently administered by Access Pro Bono BC.
In June 2016, Aleem was awarded the CBABC President’s Medal in recognition of his contributions to the legal profession. In May 2017, he was elected to CBABC Provincial Council as a representative of Vancouver County. In June 2018, he was elected as an Officer to the CBABC Executive Committee.
Part of Aleem’s passion for human rights comes from his previous work abroad. As a newly-called lawyer in the mid-nineties, he worked as a Human Rights Officer for the U.N. High Commission of Human Rights, where he assisted in reporting on the administration of justice and ongoing human rights violations in Rwanda.
Aleem was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2018.
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Isaac Won is a lawyer in the Human Rights Clinic. During law school, Isaac volunteered extensively with the Law Students Legal Advice Program, providing legal representation and advice to low income and vulnerable individuals.
Isaac completed his articles with CLAS in May 2018 and worked briefly with the Mental Health Law Program before joining the Human Rights Clinic.
Workshop: Human Rights in BC and Discrimination in Education
You will learn:
-The definition of discrimination under the BC Human Rights Code
-The duties service providers have to accommodate disabilities and other characteristics protected under the BC Human Rights Code
-The process and procedure of filing a human rights complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal
You can read more about CLAS and the work they do here:
Read all the details about our conference here: