Adrienne Telford

Adrienne’s labour law practice focuses on workplace human rights, occupational health and safety, grievance arbitration, professional discipline, and collective bargaining. She represents workers employed in a range of sectors, including unionized workers in the agricultural and food industry, construction industry, and energy, health care, and postal sectors, as well as midwives, teachers, and lawyers. She also advises public sector unions in their negotiations with employers and government.

Adrienne has been involved in a broad range of constitutional, human rights, and public law litigation, including serving as:

Pro bono counsel to Mr. Simons, the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, PASAN (a community-based prisoner health and harm reduction organization), and other community organizations in a constitutional challenge to the restrictions on prisoners’ access to sterile injection equipment in federal prisons.
Counsel to the Association of Ontario Midwives in its precedent setting human rights claim which established that the Ontario government had engaged in years of systemic gender discrimination in midwives’ compensation.
Counsel to the Service Employees International Union in a case establishing the right to maintain pay equity in predominantly female workplaces in the nursing home sector with reference to male work and wages.
Counsel to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in its successful Charter challenge to back-to-work legislation which unconstitutionally interfered with the right of postal workers to strike.
Counsel to Working Families in its Charter challenge to restrictions on labour and political speech during provincial elections.
Counsel to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in a case before the Supreme Court of Canada which established constitutional protection for the right to strike.
Counsel to a coalition of Ontario teachers’ unions in a case before the Supreme Court of Canada which established that the British Columbia government had violated the constitutional rights of teachers to a meaningful process of collective bargaining.
Pro bono counsel to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression in a Charter challenge to Bill C-51, Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015.
Adrienne represents complainants and public interest groups before a range of tribunals, including the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, the Toronto Police Services’ police discipline tribunal, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (formerly the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the body responsible for reviewing the actions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service). She also provides strategic advice on federal and provincial election laws to trade unions and civil society organizations. She advises and represents provincial and federal bodies and tribunals, including statutory bodies mandated with police accountability, and the Specific Claims Tribunal of Canada, an independent tribunal established to adjudicate First Nations’ claims against the Crown relating to land and treaty rights.

Adrienne presents at conferences in the areas of labour, constitutional and human rights and Indigenous rights, as well as tribunal advocacy and public sector bargaining. She was appointed adjunct faculty at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she taught constitutional law, including Aboriginal and Charter rights, in the Global Professional Master of Laws Program.

Prior to joining the firm, Adrienne worked as a law clerk to Madam Justice Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada. She graduated from the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law and received a B.Sc. from McGill University’s School of Environment.

Adrienne brings to her practice a deep commitment to workers’ struggle, Indigenous rights and sovereignty, and women’s and LGBTQ rights. She is a member of the Law Union of Ontario’s Movement Defence Committee and Anti-Colonial Committee.