Avvy Go

Honourable
Avvy Yao-Yao Go
OOnt
Born1963 (age 62–63)
Hong Kong
OccupationsLawyer, activist
AwardsOrder of Ontario
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese吳瑤瑤
Simplified Chinese吴瑶瑶
Transcriptions

Avvy Yao-Yao Go OOnt (born 1963, in Hong Kong) is a Canadian lawyer who have been serving as a judge of the Federal Court since August 2021. She is the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed to the Federal Court. Prior to her judicial appointment, she was a prominent lawyer in Toronto for her advocacy for immigrant and racialized communities in Canada and for her role in calling out systemic racism and other forms of discrimination within the legal system.

Early life and education

Go was born in 1963 in Hong Kong[1][2] and emigrated to Canada with her parents in 1982.[3]

Go completed her undergraduate studies in economics at the University of Waterloo in 1986, and obtained her law degree from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1989.[4] She completed her articles with Toronto-based law firm WeirFoulds, and was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1991.[3] She further obtained her master of laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1999.[5]

Career as an activist lawyer

Go commenced her formal legal career at Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) as a legal researcher.

Go worked as a legal clinic lawyer for close to three decades. She joined Legal Aid Ontario's legal clinic system as a staff lawyer in Toronto, initially at the East Toronto Community Legal Services and Parkdale Community Legal Services.[5][6]

Advocacy for immigrants and racialized community

In 1992, Go began her leadership of the Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, a clinic with a specific focus on servicing low-income non-English speakers in the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian communities in the Greater Toronto Area.[7] During her tenure, Go was frequently cited sought by the press for comments on legal issues relating to systemic racism and the racialization of poverty, and was a leading voice on historic injustice suffered by the Chinese Canadian community.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

In 2002, Go was co-counsel in a class action lawsuit, Mack v Canada (AG), on behalf of Chinese head tax payers and their descendants against the Government of Canada to seek redress for the harmful effect of discriminatory Chinese head tax and Chinese Exclusion Act.[14][15] Although the litigation was ultimately unsuccessful, it increased political pressure on the government to address this issue and help lead to an official apology by the Prime Minister of Canada on June 22, 2006, and the payment of symbolic reparations for survivors and their spouses.[16]

In 2007, she co-founded the Colour of Poverty Campaign (COPC), a campaign to address the increasing racialization of poverty in Ontario and currently serves as a steering committee member of COPC.[17][18] She continued to serve in the organization, was a member of the steering committee in 2017.[12][19][20]

In 2017, Go appeared before a Canadian Senate hearing to discuss the impact of high fees on immigration for the at risk communities she serves in her role at Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.[8][21][22]

Go was involved in a case involving a Chinese couple who had their rights as parents challenged because their DNA did not match the DNA of their child.[23][24]

Campaign for Chinese head tax reparations

Go was a leading voice in the campaign to redress the historical wrong from Chinese Head Tax and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 for over a decade. She was thrust to the frontline of the campaign when she became the acting executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) in 1988 and the president of its Toronto chapter in 1989.[3]

Go was elected as a Bencher of Law Society of Upper Canada in 2001, 2006, and again in 2013.[25]

Judiciary

On August 6, 2021, Go was appointed a justice of the Federal Court and an ex officio member of the Federal Court of Appeal by Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti.[26] This made her the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed to the Federal Court. She was the fifteenth judge appointed to the Federal Court by the Liberal Trudeau ministry.

She would face mandatory retirement in 2038.

Awards and honours

  • President's Award, 2002, Women's Law Association of Ontario[3]
  • William P. Hubbard Race Relations Award, 2008, City of Toronto [3]
  • Lawyer of Distinction Award, 2012, Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers
  • Member, 2014, Order of Ontario,[27][28] with the following citation:[29]

Avvy Yao Yao Go is a respected lawyer, who uses her law degree to advance the rights of Toronto's marginalized communities. She has built coalitions across different communities on issues of anti-racism, human rights and equity and most recently co-founded the "Colour of Poverty Campaign".

References

  1. ↑ Arlene Chan (2011). The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle. Dundurn. pp. 201–. ISBN 978-1-55488-979-2.
  2. ↑ deMars, Bruce (1 March 2014). "180 Portraits of the people who helped shape the city from March 6, 1834 to the present". Press Reader. Toronto Star. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Waterloo and the Order of Ontario - University of Waterloo: 60 Years of Innovation". 13 February 2017.
  4. ↑ "Avvy Yao-Yao Go '89 - University of Toronto Faculty of Law". Archived from the original on 2017-03-21. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  5. 1 2 "Avvy Go". www.lco-cdo.org. Archived from the original on 2017-02-01. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  6. ↑ Harald Bauder (2011). Immigration Dialectic: Imagining Community, Economy, and Nation. University of Toronto Press. pp. 101–. ISBN 978-1-4426-1076-7.
  7. ↑ "Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Community based legal clinic". mtcsalc.org. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  8. 1 2 Keung, Nicholas (February 24, 2017). "High fees blamed for sharp decrease in Canadian citizenship applications". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  9. ↑ Mojtehedzadeh, Sara (April 25, 2016). "'Widespread' workplace abuse persists for Chinese restaurant workers". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  10. ↑ "Chinese restaurant workers underpaid and overworked, new report says". CBC News. April 25, 2016. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  11. ↑ Grant, Tavia (October 14, 2016). "Chinese signs divide resort-area owners near Algonquin Park". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  12. 1 2 Go, Avvy (21 March 2017). "Ending racial discrimination means overhauling our employment laws: Opinion". Toronto Star. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  13. ↑ Long, Jamie (July 30, 2016). "Why video now plays a major role in probes of deaths linked to police". CBC News. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  14. ↑ Mack v. Canada (Attorney General), [2002] O.J. No. 3488 (ONCA)
  15. ↑ Jennifer Henderson; Pauline Wakeham (2013). Reconciling Canada: Critical Perspectives on the Culture of Redress. University of Toronto Press. pp. 90–. ISBN 978-1-4426-1168-9.
  16. ↑ "PM offers apology, 'symbolic payments' for Chinese head tax". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  17. ↑ "Avvy Go". Migrant Mothers Project. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  18. ↑ "New Appointees to the Order of Ontario".
  19. ↑ "Province takes aim at racism; Strategy includes collecting race-based data". Chronicle Journal. THE CANADIAN PRESS. March 8, 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  20. ↑ "Ontario to tackle systemic racism through three-year strategic plan". Inside Toronto. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  21. ↑ Schneidereit, Erika (2 March 2017). "Immigration and citizenship: The financial barriers to becoming new Canadians". National. Archived from the original on 22 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  22. ↑ "Immigrants peeved by federal government's switch to sponsorship lottery". The Hamilton Spectator. 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  23. ↑ Siyi (March 2017). "多伦多大陆难民申请养女来加 移民官拒认一家人 - 无忧资讯". info.51.ca (in Chinese (China)). Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  24. ↑ "因计生遭遗弃 中国女孩随养父移民加拿大受阻_加拿大家园网". www.iask.ca. 加拿大家园网版权所有家园简介. March 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  25. ↑ "AVVY GO TO REPLACE WENDY MATHESON AS BENCHER". Law Time. July 1, 2013.
  26. ↑ "Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada announces judicial appointments to the Federal Court". Department of Justice. August 6, 2021.
  27. ↑ "OBA.org - Avvy Yao Yao Go". www.oba.org. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  28. ↑ "Go awarded Order of Ontario - The Gazette". 27 January 2014.
  29. ↑ "New Appointees to the Order of Ontario" (Press release). Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. 2014-01-23.
  30. ↑ "Avvy Yao-Yao Go (BA '86, Economics) | Arts | University of Waterloo". uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2026-04-01.
  31. ↑ Law Society of Ontario (2026-03-02). "Law Society presents Honorary LLD to the Honourable Avvy Yao-Yao Go". Law Society Gazette. Law Society of Ontario.
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