Canadian Lawyer

26 M a y 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m i f you ask Sukanya Pillay what the top priorities are on her to-do list for her new job it may leave you feeling a little overwhelmed — not just about her job, but the state of civil liberties in Canada and around the world. As the new general counsel and execu- tive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association you can almost hear her take a deep breath as she launches into just the domestic areas of concern including vot- ing rights, mandatory minimum sentences, privacy and surveillance, and oh yes, what is the test for extradition? The list goes on. One would hope, as progress is made in "civil society," there would be less work for organizations like the CCLA, but sadly that's far from the case, explains Pillay. "It's certainly a full-time job and then some," she says. "The climate we live in right now has changed drastically in the last 10 years. What's different after the Edward Snowden revelation is that we are aware of the previously unfathomable scope of surveillance and potential reach of intelligence agencies and the sharing of this information." Pillay believes the CCLA has an impor- tant role to play in making sure Canadians demand nothing less than "accountability and transparency" and it works within the legal framework to make sure fundamental freedoms are protected. While she has been serving as inter- im general counsel and acting executive director since August last year, following in the footsteps of Nathalie Des Rosiers who held the position from July 2009 to August 2013, Pillay formally took on the role in February. "You certainly live and breathe it and the clock doesn't stop for the weekend," Pillay told Canadian Lawyer recently during an interview on the fly between meetings. "But it's a great honour to follow Alan Bovaroy and Nathalie Des Rosiers. I feel like it's an opportunity to work with an excellent organization that has a history of advancing civil liberties at a time when the work is needed arguably more now than ever." Whether it's protest marches in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver with respect to students' rights, fracking, or other issues, she says "security and rights should not be at opposite ends of the spec- trum — we need to put them together in tandem and we have the greatest peace and security when our rights are upheld." The CCLA faces two challenges, she says. "One is the outside world but even inside Canada in our day-to-day lives we may feel we live in a free and democratic country and it may not appear we face the same threats as other parts of the world, but to the con- trary, there are many serious threats to civil liberties in Canada across the board." Pillay has been working on the protec- tion of human rights for most of her career. She served as program director for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York, was director of the law and human rights program of the International Television Trust for the Environment, and was in-house counsel for a large telecom- munications company's operations in India. She holds a graduate degree in law from New York University and spent five years as a full-time faculty member of the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. She has received awards and honours for her teaching, research, and work in interna- tional and human rights law. In November 2013, she received the President's Award from the South Asian Bar Association in Toronto. She feels there is a lot of work to be done in Canada with respect to issues of civil lib- erties, many of which the Canadian public Cross EXaMinEd Rights watch on the home front Sukanya pillay, the new general counsel and executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has a long to-do list. by jenniFer broWn Canadians must demand accountability and transparency, says Sukanya Pillay.

• Cover