Brandon Trask News Archive

June 24, 2022 — 
No less than three law students have been named recipients of the University of Manitoba’s 2022 Emerging Leader Awards. These remarkable students include Class of 2022’s Michael Badejo, President of the Manitoba Law Students’ Association (2021-2022), Shawn Singh, an active member of the MLSA and participant in the Presidents’ Student Leadership Program cohort (2021), and Class of 2023’s Adam Kowal, who served as co-president of the Manitoba Indigenous Law Students’ Association during his second year of law.

June 6, 2022 — 
Four members of this remarkable group of future lawyers joined us in conversation to reflect on their chosen career paths and law school experiences

May 13, 2022 — 
Every year, each faculty at the University of Manitoba nominates an outstanding student who is then invited to recognize two teachers who played an instrumental role in their educational journey, one from their early school years (K to grade 12) and one from university. Both teachers are then honoured at the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning’s Students’ Teacher Recognition Reception. The Faculty of Law’s Outstanding Student for 2022 is Shawn Singh, a third-year law student and a fellow of the President’s Student Leadership Program. As fate would have it, the professor he chose to recognize at last Thursday’s reception was Assistant Professor Brandon Trask, who was also a Faculty of Law Outstanding Student Award recipient when he graduated – in 2012.

April 22, 2022 — 
Thanks to a generous gift from alum L. Kerry Vickar [LL.B./1980], The Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba (UM Law) will finally have a physical space to house its business clinics. Room 113 will now be known as the L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic. Vickar’s gift of $500,000 will help to transform a large former storage room in Robson Hall’s lower level into a modern, practicing clinic complete with board rooms, offices, incubator spaces, private virtual consultation booths and workspace for law students to learn the practice of law in a hands-on environment. Meanwhile, the law school’s expanded clinical learning opportunities will also benefit from the re-invented learning space.

December 23, 2021 — 
Another year of virtual teaching and learning has passed, another Spring graduating class of law students endured final exams, convocation ceremonies, grad celebrations and commencement of articles in front of a screen at home. Another cohort of 1L students were introduced to law school virtually. Professors spent another year recording and uploading lectures, staring at boxes on screens hoping students were behind them, heeding the lessons. At some point, everyone wondered where the community was and what was happening at Robson Hall?

September 10, 2021 — 
This summer was unusual for 3L Shawn Singh. For one thing, he worked as a research assistant for Assistant Professor Brandon Trask, published three articles including two in the Manitoba Law Journal, and one in a book published by Springer Nature. He got married – that was huge. Oh yes, and he was the only law student to be selected to take part in the University of Manitoba President’s Student Leadership Summer Program.

April 14, 2021 — 
This year, Faculty of Law professors have been engaging prolifically in national conversations about COVID-19, Indigenous rights, Civil Liberties and Charter Rights among other important topics. Here is a compilation of some of their writings published in and for such public arenas as newspapers and made available to Canadians beyond academia.

March 31, 2021 — 
Law professor Colleen M. Flood argues vaccine passports will be forced up on society and governments must regulate their use. “But wholesale opposition to vaccine passports will merely permit a Wild West to emerge with differing standards that don’t sufficiently protect against discrimination or attend to privacy and fraudulent use concerns,” Flood writes. Law professor Brandon Trask says such passports have no place in Canada. “One of the costs of living in a democracy is that our fellow citizens may do things other than we wish they would. In the end, this is a small price to pay for all the benefits that flow from having meaningful rights,” Trask writes.

March 23, 2021 — 
With governments working to roll out COVID-19 vaccines more broadly, some Canadian jurisdictions are considering “vaccine passports,” which would be proof that the holder has been vaccinated. These documents would be intended to facilitate international travel. But we must be vigilant against any efforts to deploy them domestically that would discriminate against people who have not been inoculated.

February 10, 2021 — 
Ontario’s Critical Care COVID Command Centre recently released an “emergency standard of care for major surge” protocol, which is intended to “save the most lives in the most ethical manner possible” if the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm hospitals.