Yvonne Boyer
Yvonne Boyer | |
---|---|
Senator from Ontario | |
Assumed office March 15, 2018 | |
Nominated by | Justin Trudeau |
Appointed by | Julie Payette |
Personal details | |
Born | October 25, 1953 |
Political party | Independent Senators Group |
Profession | Lawyer, professor, administrator |
Yvonne Boyer (born October 25, 1953) is a Canadian lawyer who was named to the Senate of Canada on March 25, 2018, as a Senator for Ontario by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A Métis, Boyer is the first Indigenous person appointed to the Senate from Ontario.[1] She lives in Merrickville, Ontario, near Ottawa.[2]
As a lawyer, Boyer has been outspoken in her criticisms of inequities in Canada's health care in its treatment of and availability to Indigenous peoples.[1]
Boyer is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario and has ancestral roots in the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan and Red River, Manitoba.[2] As well as being a lawyer, at the time of her appointment to the Upper House she was a professor in the law faculty at the University of Ottawa and associate director at the school's Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.[1] She is also a former member of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and has also served as in-house counsel for the Native Women's Association of Canada, and as a senior policy analyst and legal adviser at the National Aboriginal Health Organization.[2]
Boyer's appointment to the Senate was recommended by the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments.[2]
Activity
[edit]In May 2022 together with two other senators Senator Boyer issued a report calling for a review of the convictions of 12 indigenous women, including the Quewezance sisters, and their exoneration.[3]
In June 2022, she introduced Bill S-250 in the Senate, which would make coercing or forcing a person to be sterilized a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in jail.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Ontario Metis lawyer Yvonne Boyer named to Senate". Retrieved 18 March 2018.
- ^ a b c d "Yvonne Boyer is Ontario's first Indigenous senator". CBC News. March 15, 2018. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
- ^ Pate, Kim; Anderson, Dawn; Boyer, Yvonne (2022-05-16). "Injustices and miscarriages of justice experienced by 12 indigenous women: a case for group conviction review and exoneration by the Department of Justice via the Law Commission of Canada and/or the Miscarriages of Justice Commission" (PDF). Retrieved 2022-06-17.
- ^ Peter Zimonjic (2022-07-14). "Senate report calls for law criminalizing forced or coerced sterilization". CBC News. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
- 21st-century Canadian lawyers
- Living people
- Canadian women lawyers
- Canadian senators from Ontario
- Women members of the Senate of Canada
- Independent Canadian senators
- Members of the Métis Nation of Ontario
- Academic staff of the University of Ottawa
- 21st-century Canadian politicians
- 21st-century Canadian women politicians
- Independent Senators Group
- 1953 births
- First Nations academics
- 21st-century women lawyers