Steering
Committee

Photo (modified): Clay Banks on Unsplash

As of November 2024, the Steering Committee for Tribunal Watch Ontario includes:

Brian Cook

Steering Committee Coordinator

Brian started his career in dispute resolution in 1985 when he was appointed to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal (WCAT) as a member representative of workers. He was appointed as a Vice-Chair of WCAT in 1991 and continued in that capacity at the Workplace Safety and Insurance and Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT).
From 2008 to 2018, he was a Vice-Chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
He has also been appointed to the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board, and the Condominium Authority Tribunal.
Brian has an LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution from Osgoode Hall Law School. In 2020 he was awarded the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators Medal which is given to honour those who have made a significant contribution to the administrative justice field and to the well-being of the community at large.

Brenda earned her LL.B. at Western University and her LL.M at L.S.E..
After completing her LL.M., Brenda joined a major management-side labour and employment law firm, where spent more than 30 years, retiring as a partner. Her practice was primarily in the areas of labour, employment, human rights and education law. She appeared as counsel before the CFSRB, the Human Rights Tribunal, the Special Education Tribunal, arbitration boards and the courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She was counsel in several landmark human rights decisions.
Following her retirement, Brenda conducted workplace investigation focusing primarily on human rights matters before her cross appointment to the Human Rights Tribunal and the Child and Family Service Review Board in 2018 where she spent 2 years as an adjudicator.

Kathy Laird has extensive experience in the administrative justice sector as an adjudicator and mediator at the several Ontario tribunals including the Human Rights Tribunal, the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal and the Child and Family Services Review Board. She has served as counsel to the Chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and as the executive director of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre.
Kathy worked for many years in Ontario’s legal clinic system, litigating before administrative tribunals and the courts. In that capacity, Kathy played a leading role in several law reform initiatives that led to new social justice legislation governing Ontario’s eviction process, rent regulation regime and human rights enforcement system.
In 2004, in recognition of her work in Ontario’s tribunal system, Kathy received the medal of the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators for outstanding contribution to administrative justice in Ontario. In 2016, she received the Law Society of Upper Canada Medal for her work in promoting access to justice.
In 2017, Kathy was retained by the Chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board to conduct an independent qualitative audit of immigration detention hearings across the country to determine if appropriate standards of procedural and substantive fairness were being met. Her report was released in April 2018.

A lawyer by training David is a retired, long-time adjudicator with various Provincial and Federal Tribunals including the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and the Refugee Protection Division of the IRB.

Naomi Overend holds an LL.B. from the University of Toronto. She was appointed to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario from 2008 – 2018. Prior to that appointment, she was discipline counsel at the Law Society of Upper Canada. From 1989 to 2003, she was counsel to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and in that role litigated numerous human rights cases before the Tribunal, the Divisional Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Lorne Slotnick is a retired labour arbitrator and mediator in Toronto. He has also served as a part-time member of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the arbitration unit of the Financial Services Commission (now the auto accident benefits service of the Licence Appeal Tribunal). In addition, he has worked at the Ontario Labour Relations Board and for a regulated health profession college, adjudicated unjust dismissal cases under the Canada Labour Code and acted as mediator in many employment-related Superior Court of Justice civil actions. He worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in the 1980s. He was called to the Ontario bar in 1979 and began his adjudicative work with the former human rights Boards of Inquiry in the 1990s.

Voy Stelmaszynski is a retired lawyer with over 25 years of experience in the tribunal sector of labour and employment, primarily with the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
He has graduate degrees in Slavic Languages and Literatures and previously worked as a court interpreter; he is also a published translator.
Voy was President of the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators (2015-2017) and continues to serve on several of SOAR’s committees including Education and Conference Planning. He is also a member of SOAR’s Board of Directors.
In 2017 Voy was the recipient of the Tom Marshall Award of Excellence for Public Sector Lawyers presented by the Ontario Bar Association.
He is a member of the Tribunals Nominating Panel for the City of Toronto.