Julia Hanigsberg

3I'm terrific, and hello and nice to see you.

5I am. Well, originally, originally actually from outside of Chicago. That's where I was born. My parents moved to Montreal when I was about 2 and a half years old. So I spent most of my— I spent my whole childhood, a lot of my early adulthood in Montreal, including going to McGill for my law degree.

7Arrived to Canada just before my third birthday, so September 1968, my parents arrived in Canada by car, traveling from Chicago to Montreal. So came in just to hit the fall and the winter in Montreal, but that was okay. They were living in Chicago, so they were used to windy cities and intense winters. And they settled in Montreal. And actually, my parents stayed in Montreal longer than I did. They stayed in Montreal till my dad retired. And then we're very fortunate. My parents moved here to Toronto when my dad retired. So we've got a set of grandparents in town, and it's wonderful to have them so close.

9Sure. You know, my mom and dad were very young when they had me. So they were 20 and 21 years old. So they've always been young parents. And that's something I've actually appreciated more as I've gotten older. Of course, when I was a kid, they seemed old to me. And now I realize how fortunate I am to have had parents who even to this day are very vital and can be really active grandparents and very part of our lives. My parents are both very intellectually engaged people. We were a household where there were always books overflowing off every surface and stacked in multiple layers on every bookshelf. They're really thoughtful people with great senses of humor, storytellers.

10My dad especially, especially. You can wind him up and then you'll get a long, long tail. And, you know, I think they really fostered in me in my entire childhood, and I'm an only child, they always demonstrated tremendous confidence in me. I never doubted for a moment that I could do anything that I set my mind to. They never doubted me for a moment, and they always encouraged me in any aspiration I had. So I think that's an incredible foundation to give your children. I remember actually when I was in law school and I was on the McGill Law Journal, which was something I was very passionate about. And in my second year, I was deciding whether I would become, would run for part of the executive.

11And I had been planning to run for one of the lower positions on the executive. And I remember to this day, and I've repeated it to other people, that my mother said to me, well, why wouldn't you run for the top job? Why don't you run to be editor-in-chief? Wouldn't it be fun to be the boss and to be the one who, you know, helps steer the direction? And it was almost like the permission I needed to have the ambition to do that. And her belief that, of course, if that's what I wanted, that's what I should do. It's something that stuck with me. I've repeated that story to my kids. And it's something that I think is a bit emblematic of the kind of childhood I had and the— the kind of parenting that I was fortunate to, to have growing up.

13Yeah, I would say it was very much the latter. You know, law school was kind of funny. You know, we didn't have any lawyers in the family. I didn't know any lawyers. We had no close friends who were lawyers. So I didn't even— you know, I think the clearest picture I had of what lawyer was came from LA Law. There was, you know, there was no direction in that sense. I think what they— and I'm not sure if they even said this explicitly, but I think the message I took from them was that education was important, that being intellectually stimulated was important, that being a knowledgeable person was important, a person who was engaged with ideas, that that was really important.

14So for example, my undergraduate degree was in philosophy, not the most practical degree in the world. And I remember that being something that, you know, we talked about at home all the time. The things that I was reading in my philosophy BA were things that they had read, you know, they, you know, it was all seemed very normal in my household to do a degree like that and to do, to learn for the sake of intellectual fulfillment rather than necessarily for the sake of practicality or or career fulfillment. That being said, they were very, very proud when I got into law school.

16So my father is a sociologist, a sociology professor. My mother was— she did her degree in classics. And so it just would be a demonstration of the kind of intellectual breadth that they had. And that continues to this day. I mean, they, you know, the books they read, you know, what they consider a light read is, you know, an 800-page tome on some, you know, deep intellectual matter. And, you know, it's a pandemic, so I kind of— I'm reading a lot of thrillers these days. I'm not reading a lot of deep things. And, you know, they're They're people who just love the intellectual stimulation of knowing more. They love history. It was a rich environment to grow up in, rich and varied.

19Yeah, so I think, I think you're right. There are people who go to law school because they've got a very clear idea of what a lawyer is and what a law career is, and they say, that's the thing I want. I think there are also a fair number of people more like me who go to law school because they're not quite sure what they want to do next, but they're good with words, they're good analytically, they've got that kind of brain. You know, when I applied to law school, I also applied to a master's degree in English literature program. I was pretty confident that if I did the master's in English literature, I'd probably end up going to law school at some point later because I would want to get a job eventually.

20So I wasn't driven from a career perspective to law. And if anything, I was surprised by how much I loved it. I loved my legal education. I found it extraordinarily intellectually stimulating. And, and, you know, I credit McGill a lot for creating a very nurturing robust and varied community that we were able to learn in, a community where you learned in both languages. So I took— I did what was then called the national program. So I did my civil law courses in French. I did my common law courses in English. So I was exposed to two different legal traditions and faculty members from two different traditions and linguistic communities. My community of peers was very diverse.

21Coming from around the country. And so it was an environment where I was exposed to extraordinary new things. I had been interested in feminism in my undergraduate degree. Certainly my mother is a feminist. It was very much the environment again that I grew up in. Critical feminist theory, critical race theory, all of these things were part of my legal academic path. And so, I mean, it was a very rich environment.

23You know, it's a great question, and I think those events of national and international of importance were impactful. I remember at the time there was a lounge in the basement of the law school. It'll take you back to know that you could smoke in that lounge. I was never a smoker, but it was a smelly place. But the other thing in that lounge, which is why I bring it up, was a big TV set. And when these moments of historical importance were happening, I remember that TV set being tuned to— this was the early days of 24-hour news. News channels and gathering as a group of still very young people around the TV set trying to understand what these tectonic international shifts meant for the world and potentially what they meant for us.

25Yeah.

27Well, I'm not sure that I am yet, so it may be a bit premature to ask the question. You know, come, come talk to me in another 10 years. And you know, you mentioned my LinkedIn profile. I think if you take a look at what I've done might suggest to you that I'm a person who isn't— continues to seek and has always sought out new things. I can say that probably by about second year of law school, I was really settled and realized I was loving this and was captivated by what I was learning. I think it was all very gradual. You get different experiences, different people who impact you. You get the different opportunities.

28So, for example, I was, you know, gifted an adjunct professor at McGill, Rosalie Abella. And Rosalie Abella, Justice Rosalie Abella, recently retired or retiring from the Supreme Court, who I just saw last week, was an extraordinarily gifted educator. She gave me an opportunity to learn at her at her knee. And, you know, we had a— we made a powerful connection, a powerful intellectual connection that became a friendship that's now, you know, I guess it's 30 years old or whatever it is. So I think you get these moments if you're very fortunate, as I've been, where you get exposed to people, to ideas that are really meaningful. Another example, I mooted at law school. I never would have thought of myself as a mooter.

29Whatever I thought those people were, it wasn't my self-image, but I fell into it. I happened to enjoy it. I was encouraged to do competitive mooting. I mooted. That also gave me exposure to peers from across the country, from all the different law schools. That was really fun. I mooted in my second language. I mooted in French. That was really fun. I had the opportunity to, you know, gain access to lots of people from the profession through that. And that probably was the beginning of me thinking that maybe I could apply to clerk at the Supreme Court, which never would have occurred to me as something that someone like me could do.

32So, you know, it's interesting, you're using words that are not words that I associate with myself. So that's always interesting, right, to hear somebody else reflect back to you what they see of your path. So my background, you asked my origin story, there's nothing elite in my origin story. I grew up in a 2-bedroom apartment in Montreal. We were not fancy people. We were not people of extraordinary means by any stretch of the imagination. You know, elite, not necessarily in my vocabulary. My parents are well-educated, you know, good schools, extremely— they met at University of Wisconsin in Madison. They are well-educated people, but it's just a word that I don't associate with myself.

33So you can hear me stumbling a little bit even hearing you use it. I was really fortunate. I summered as a law student first at Ogilvy Renault, and then I was— I won an academic prize sponsored by McCarthy's, and then they, you know, in meeting the folks from McCarthy's after having won that prize, I was offered a summer job there, and then that became an articling position before I clerked. The clerkship was an extraordinary experience. It's the ultimate wonderful intellectual engaging experience for young lawyers, probably, you know, the best thing you could have done. I also met my husband there, so it had some good knock-on effects in my life, transformed my life in many, many ways.

34Yes, a question about government, and I'll just, you know, I'll take issue with your premise, if you don't mind. Some of the most gifted lawyers this country has ever created, has ever benefited from, are lawyers in our government. You know, you look at and you read your constitutional case law, you see the names over and over and over again. Those charter litigators, those lawyers who were, you know, part of, you know, bringing the Constitution back to Canada, those are government lawyers. So I actually never thought of government as a second choice at all. I fought hard to get my government job. I came into my first government job working at the Ministry of the Attorney General, 720 Bay Street in Toronto, on a 6-month contract, not as counsel because there were no counsel jobs to be had, so I came in as a policy advisor.

35I made about $30,000 a year at the time, and I felt lucky to have it, really lucky to have it, because I'd seen, you know, all those Ontario, you know, Ontario v. whomever cases throughout law school. I'd seen those names. So from the very beginning, I was very honored to be able to be part of shaping law in Ontario. I was never in litigation, although that would have been an early obvious path for me, but the opportunity came in policy and that became a really fun experience. The ability to shape laws, shape regulations, shape where the government is going. So, you know, and then as you said, you know, one of the greatest things about government, and I said this to so many people, is the variety of careers you can build within government, the vastness of it.

36You know, even just a lawyer's path can take so many different trajectories. And so mine, you know, mine was one that, you know, took a certain trajectory, was involved with some pretty high-profile policy development, in particular around same-sex rights. So after the M versus H case in Ontario, the Court of Appeal case that was pivotal in Ontario, we had the legislative policy development process. I ended up leading that process for the Ministry of the Attorney General, and that created a pathway for me that I worked hard and was fortunate to be able to follow.

38Yeah it's a great question. No one's ever asked me that. I've never really thought about it that way, but I think you're right. It was the big the big first big leadership role where there's a lot of money at stake, there are a lot of people there are a lot of stakeholders of tremendous variety. It was a, you know, it was a huge cauldron of learning under extraordinary pressure. And yeah, I think you're right. I'd never thought about it that way. Thank you for that. Thank you for the illumination you just provided me.

40Yeah, it was a great time. I had— when I accepted the role of Chief of Staff to the then Attorney General, I said, I'll do it for 6 months. I'll get you set up in the office. I'll hire your team for you. And then, of course, 2 years later, I was still doing it. And It's a lot. There's a reason the people who do those jobs tend to be young. I had a young family. It was a lot, and it was, it was time to, to give somebody else a chance to do that big, great, intense job. And I really didn't know what would come next. I explored some opportunities within government, and they didn't feel like the right step.

41Potentially now I'm thinking, because I'd had that CEO-like experience and other things didn't seem like they would be as impactful. And so I had a great, great opportunity. I went to Osgoode as a visiting professor for 6 months and allowed me to co-teach a course, which was great, work on some strategic planning with the then Dean Patrick Monahan, now Mr. Justice Monahan. But more so than ever, it allowed me to meet with hundreds and hundreds of people over that 6-month period. And, you know, I know you've met my husband, and I remember one day Lorne saying to me, So who are you breakfasting with, lunching with, coffeeing with, dining with, drinking with today, dear?

42Because that was what my day looked like. And people are amazing. People are so generous. You reach out to someone and you say, I'm— here's who I am. I'm looking to make a change in my career. I don't quite know what it is. Would you sit down with me? And people do. People sit down with you. And then when you say after, you know, you spend half an hour with them, is there anybody else you think I should talk to? They say, sure, they connect you with 3 other amazing people and away you go. And before you know it, you know, you're, you're just meeting, talking to just incredible people. And so I used that 6 months to really try to figure out what was next.

43And ultimately there were a few people who were really pivotal in that discussion, including some great lawyers. And, you know, there were a couple of factors. One was It was a time of historic investment in post-secondary education in Ontario. Money helps. Things happen in a sector when there's some money. It was also a time of kind of unprecedented turnover in leadership. So in Toronto, you know, in the 4 universities in Toronto, 3 of them were appointing new presidents at that time: U of T, York, and Ryerson. And that seemed kind of interesting, sort of almost generational change happening, and what would that mean? And so I was connected to 2 of those. New presidents and talked to two of them.

44And Sheldon Levy at Ryerson was the person that I thought, boy, I will learn so much from this guy. And it was the smartest decision I've ever made and the most accurate intuition I've ever had, in that there wasn't a single meeting, a single discussion, a single anything where I was with him that I didn't learn and get better at my job and develop skills that that I use to this day, every single day.

46Yeah, it'll be 7 years in January.

48you

50a man.

54I think something— so thank you. You know, it's really something to hear yourself described in those ways. And, you know, I have worked hard over the years. I've also been very fortunate. You know, I think about the basket of things that I just started out with. You know, first thing is the color of my skin. The place that I was born, the country that I live in, the parents that I have, all things that I didn't earn, that I just get to kind of, you know, the big box I get to stand on as my starting point. So that's the beginning, right? And that's nothing I earned. I'd say something Lorne and I have in common, Lorne probably even more than me, is not being focused and certainly not exclusively focused on traditional definitions of success.

55I remember a long time ago when someone was trying to get Lorne to apply for a job and, you know, a mutual friend of ours was calling me because Lorne wasn't doing it. So he's like, how can we get Lorne to do this? You know, and, you know, and the answer was not by appealing to vanity or ego or ambition, because those are not the things that motivate him. Those may be the things that motivate you, but it's not going to motivate him. So if that's what you're trying— that's what you're using, you're not going to get there. So I think that throughout these, you know, these career paths— I mean, take going to Ryerson, you know, the other university that I talked to at the time was, one could argue, many would say, the more elite university in Toronto.

56I saw the scrappy university, the university president who was not cut from the same mold as everybody else, but who I knew that there was a lot to learn from. Look at Ryerson in the 9 years that I was there and Ryerson since then, right? Look at the reputation of that place. Look at the— look at what it— how it has changed post-secondary education. You know how every university has incubators and accelerators now? What was the first one in Canada? That was Ryerson. No one did that before Ryerson. So I think, you know, if one always chooses the elite or the obvious path to success, I think often you end up making decisions that aren't good for you and probably not good for that place either.

57So, you know, I think probably the thread for me is curiosity. Where am I going to learn stuff that I don't know now? It's people. Where are there people who are going to be— with which I can form a community and, you know, from whom I'll learn, who can learn from me, where I can make impact, where I will be valued? You know, those are probably the two biggest things that I've always impacted me. And, and it's the same here at Holland Bloorview. It's this community. It's what this place does. It's the ability to make impact. You know, we're growing our research institute right now. We're going to have the highest concentration of researchers in the field of childhood disability in the world.

58My ambition, my desire for the success of this organization and the people who make up this community is limitless. My desire for my own success is not the thing that gets me up in the morning. It's not to say, you know, I'm not disputing that by most of the kinds of criteria people look at that I am successful and I'm very— I am grateful for that success and it makes a good deal of impact in my life, but it's not the thing that gets me up every day in the morning. And so I suppose that's the thing that I would say. And it's the thing that, you know, we said to our own children where, you know, where our children are now young adults.

59It's the thing that I've said to friends and family when I talk about their own children and, you know, decisions their kids shouldn't, you know, are making around which university to go to. And, oh, I can't believe my kid is— he wants to go to this place rather than this place. Shouldn't they go to this university? And the first thing I always said is, well, what drives them? What motivates them? What's the environment where they're going to feel the most motivated and successful? Don't go from, you know, the top 10 lists of universities look at your kid, look at their individual passions and motivations, and find the right fit. I'd say the same thing to anybody.

61Yeah. So yes, although I'm not sure it's all about what our parents did. You know, I know that my children in a lot of senses are much more practical in their orientation than either my husband or I were at their age. Now, that being said, when I went to law school at McGill, my tuition was $850 a semester. Not a lot was riding on that decision, my success or not, you know, how much salary when I graduated. Not a lot was riding on that decision. You know, right now where, I mean, goodness knows what law school costs. I sort of know, I don't even want to utter those numbers because they're so shocking.

62If law school had cost back then what it costs now, I would never have gone to law school because I wasn't committed enough to the law. I wasn't passionate enough. I discovered it by being in it. So I think the pressures on young people today are much different than they were when I was coming up. And I think it makes it much harder for them to take risks take risks in their education. The gambles are very expensive. And I think they look at the economy, they look at all the different factors. If you live in Toronto, they look at the cost of a house in Toronto and they think, oh my goodness, how am I ever going to do this?

63The pressures are enormous. So I think as parents, you try to do what you can to mitigate that, you know, try to, try to encourage them to still follow their passions if they can. But also, you know, I think another thing, you know, that we've talked about as a family, you know, is, is that there are lots of ways to express your passions. You know, some people get to do it from 9 to 5. It's their day job is their passion. Other people, you know, work at a job that they're good at and they, they believe they make impact and it's fulfilling, but their passion comes from their community involvement. It comes from their volunteerism.

64It comes from what they try to raise money for. It comes from whatever else it is. So there are lots of ways to make a full and satisfying life. And I think as a parent, what we've tried to do, what I've tried to do, is create as broad a universe as possible for our children to imagine what success would look like for them, what pride in them would look like for us. So we're not limiting their universe, we're expanding their universe. And, and then support them in the choices they make.

66Yeah,

68Yeah, so I tell you that, you know, like you said, I'm a non-practicing lawyer. I value that legal education and that legal training every single day. And I would say to all those lawyers who are listening to this that you have an extraordinary toolbox at your disposal. You may not recognize it. You have tools that other people don't have. And you can use those tools in all sorts of different professional capacities. So if the thing you are using your toolbox for right now is not motivating to you, is hard on you, and you don't think it's your path, don't think that means you have to toss out the toolbox and find yourself a new one.

69You can use those tools to take you in extraordinary directions. I've seen it in my own career. I've seen it in so many other people's careers. So, so have confidence that you know the things you need to know to do a vast array of important and impactful things.

71It's a pleasure. Thank you so much.