Philippe Dufresne, B.C.L, LL.B
Philippe Dufresne is the Director and Senior Counsel of the Canadian
Human Rights Commission's Litigation Services Division.
In this capacity, he leads the team of lawyers responsible for the
Commission's representation before courts and administrative tribunals
across Canada in precedent-setting cases raising issues of human rights
law and regularly appears before the Federal Court of Canada and the
Federal Court of Appeal.
He has represented the Commission before the Supreme Court of
Canada on a number of occasions, including in cases dealing with the
duty to accommodate (Multani v. CSMB, CCD v. VIA, Honda v. Keays),
parliamentary privilege (Vaid v. House of Commons), the independence
of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (Bell Canada v. CHRC et al.) and
the constitutional jurisdiction over Aboriginal Peoples. He has also
appeared before Senate and House of Commons Committees on the
issues of employment equity and hate propaganda. More recently, he
played a key role in the drafting of the Commission’s Special Report to
Parliament on Freedom of expression and hate propaganda on the
internet.
In 2003-2004, he was a Legal officer responsible for international
criminal tribunals with the United Nations, Human Rights and
Humanitarian law division of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Dufresne is a member of the executive of the International
Commission of Jurists (Canada) and the Canadian Bar Association. He is
also a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa where he teaches
human rights law in Canada.