Women's Legal Education and Action Fund

Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
AbbreviationLEAF
Formation1985
FounderSusan Tanner
TypeWomen's rights
Legal statusactive
Purposeadvocate and public voice, educator and network
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario, Canada
Region served
Canada
Official language
English, French
Websiteleaf.ca

Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, referred to by the acronym LEAF, is a women's rights organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

History

Canadian Lawyer magazine describes LEAF as a "non-profit organization that works to advance gender equality and human rights through litigation, law reform, and education".[1] The founding chair of LEAF was Susan Tanner,[2] and author Judy Rebick wrote in her book Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution that other founders had included both lawyers and non-lawyers, such as Nancy Ruth, Pat Hacker, Linda Ryan Nye, Kay Macpherson, Kay Sigurjonsson, and even former Chatelaine magazine editor Doris Anderson.[3]

LEAF has intervened in supreme court cases relating to freedom of expression and obscenity laws, especially in cases where obscenity laws were used to censor LGBTQ material. LEAF was an intervener in R v. Butler and Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada.[4] These positions on obscenity law were controversial. Speaking about the controversy, LEAF National Legal Committee member Karen Busby said, “One thing that obscenity law provides for is an imaginary national community standard. We’ll argue that reliance on a community standards test is incompatible with recent case law in equality because what it will approve of is what the majority approves of.”[5]

Books written about the organization

In 1991 Sherene Razack wrote the book Canadian Feminism and the Law: The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and the Pursuit of Equality just a half decade after the creation of LEAF.[6] A book by Peter Manfredi was later written on the various results of the advocacy pursued by LEAF entitled Feminist Activism in the Supreme Court: Legal Mobilization and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.[7]

Interventions

References

  1. ↑ "Join the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund at an Evening for Equality". Canadian Lawyer. May 9, 2023.
  2. ↑ Penney Kome (June 14, 2022). "Women's issues topped philanthropist Shirley Greenberg's quest for justice". Globe and Mail.
  3. ↑ Judy Rebick (2005). Ten Thousand Roses: The Making Of A Feminist Revolution. Penguin Canada. p. 155.
  4. ↑ Busby, Karen (September 1993). "LEAF and Pornography: Litigating on Equality and Sexual Representations". Legal Education and Action Fund. Retrieved 10 July 2026.
  5. ↑ "On board for Little Sister's | Xtra Magazine". 1999-07-28. Retrieved 2026-07-10.
  6. ↑ Sherene Razack (1991). Canadian Feminism and the Law: The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and the Pursuit of Equality. Second Story Press.
  7. ↑ Manfredi, Christopher P. "Feminist Activism in the Supreme Court: Legal Mobilization and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund". Ottawa Law Review: 378. Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-09-30.
  8. ↑ "Supreme Court of Canada - SCC Case Information - Search". January 2001.
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