Kim Stanton
Dr. Kim Stanton brings decades of experience advocating for systemic change through strategic litigation and policy reform to every project.
Dr. Stanton is a lawyer, called to the bar in British Columbia and Ontario, whose legal career has focused on constitutional law, equality law, Indigenous rights law, international human rights law, transitional justice, commissions of inquiry, truth commissions, and addressing gender-based violence.
Dr. Stanton was a Commissioner on the Mass Casualty Commission, the joint federal/provincial inquiry into the April 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting which issued its final report in March 2023 and addressed issues including access to firearms, gender-based violence, policing and public alerting. According to the Guardian, highly regarded anti-violence advocate Pamela Cross stated that the Mass Casualty Commission report is the "finest thing that's ever been written about gender-based violence in this country".
In 2024, the BC government appointed Dr. Stanton to conduct an independent systemic review of the BC legal system's treatment of intimate partner violence and sexual violence. She released her final report in June 2025.
Dr. Stanton is a former legal director of leading Canadian equality law organization LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund. Dr. Stanton guided the national equality law organization to a place of national prominence, she led interventions before multiple appellate courts and the Supreme Court of Canada to advance equality rights in cases spanning topics such as Aboriginal law, administrative law, criminal law, human rights law (including disability and Indigenous rights), socioeconomic rights, and reproductive justice. She appeared at Parliamentary committee hearings and made significant contributions to discourses on judicial accountability, the law of consent, and the treatment of sexual assault survivors and Indigenous women in the criminal justice system. After LEAF, she returned to private practice, where she focused on the intersection of Indigenous rights litigation and constitutional law. She was named a Best Lawyer in Aboriginal Law while a partner in the Aboriginal law group of Goldblatt Partners LLP in Toronto.
Dr. Stanton is a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto, where she completed her Masters and Doctorate degrees in law. She has published academic articles in the areas of equality and constitutional law, reconciliation, transitional justice and public inquiries. Her co-authored article, Kim Stanton and Mary Eberts, "The Disappearance of the Four Equality Rights and Systemic Discrimination from Canadian Equality Jurisprudence" National Journal of Constitutional Law 38:1 (2018) 89-124 was cited by Justice Abella in the Supreme Court of Canada decision Fraser v Canada (Attorney General) 2020 SCC 28.
She is the author of the book Reconciling Truths: Reimagining Public Inquiries in Canada, published by UBC Press in 2022. View Publications page.
Dr. Stanton is a frequent keynote speaker and conference panelist. Media appearances have included CBC Radio programs such as World at 6, Metro Morning, and The Current; CBC TV's The National and various local news programs; CTV TV's Power Play and CTV National News; Global TV's Global Morning and Global News; and she has been cited in a range of newspapers and magazines, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Cape Times, Chatelaine, Flare, Canadian Lawyer, the Lawyers Daily and Maclean's.