The Brian Mulroney Institute of Government’s Sober Second Thinkers Speakers Series Presents
Reconciliation Requires Us to Decolonize, Decriminalize, and Decarcerate
The Honourable Kim Pate
Thursday, October 16, 2025
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Mulroney Hall 2032
The Mulroney Institute welcomes The Honourable Kim Pate as part of the Sober Second Thinkers Speakers Series. Senator Pate will focus her comments on the importance of building community resources and supports via the experiences and miscarriages of justice visited on 12 Indigenous women in the residential school, child welfare, education, and criminal legal systems. Their life trajectories reveal the need for significant systemic changes and underscore how and why we must decolonize, decriminalize, and decarcerate.
All are welcome.
The Honourable Kim Pate
The Honourable Kim Pate was appointed to the Senate of Canada on November 10, 2016. First and foremost, the mother of Michael and Madison, she is also a nationally renowned advocate who has spent the last 45+ years working in and around the legal and penal systems of Canada, with and on behalf of some of the most marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized — particularly imprisoned youth, men and women.
Senator Pate graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1984 with honours in the Clinical Law Programme. She was the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) from January 1992 until her appointment to the Senate in November 2016. She has developed and taught Prison Law, Human Rights and Social Justice and Defending Battered Women on Trial courses at the Faculties of Law at the University of Ottawa, Dalhousie University and the University of Saskatchewan. She also occupied the Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 2014 and 2015.
Kim Pate is widely credited as the driving force behind the Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, headed by Justice Louise Arbour. During the Inquiry, she supported women as they aired their experiences and was a critical resource and witness in the Inquiry itself.
Senator Pate is a member of the Order of Canada, a recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case, the Canadian Bar Association’s Bertha Wilson Touchstone Award, and six honourary doctorates (Law Society of Upper Canada, University of Ottawa, Carleton University, St. Thomas University, Wilfred Laurier University, and Nipissing University).
Sober Second Thinkers Speakers Series
As part of its mandate to initiate conversations around key policy concerns, the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government has launched the Sober Second Thinkers Speakers Series. In this speakers series, the Mulroney Institute invites sitting and retired Senators to give their reflections on their time in the Senate and to talk about the importance of sober second thought in an era of increased partisanship and divisions. Over the course of one-to-two days at the university, visiting Senators will present a public lecture and engage with students. The series aims to involve students as well as the StFX campus and community at large, sharing Senators’ knowledge and insights as participant-observers in one of the nation’s central government institutions.