Louis Century talks working at the intersection of labour, refugee, and migrant issues
Law Times talks to Louis Century about his career and the kinds of cases he’s passionate about.
On the migrant agricultural workers proposed class action against the government of Canada:
“Class actions are only a part of my practice, but it is very exciting on the plaintiff’s side to be able to consider the possibility of a class action as a way to not only vindicate an individual’s rights but also to drive for systemic change and achieve compensation or remedies for a larger group of people,” Century says.
On the challenge to the Ford government’s “Student Choice Initiative,” which made certain non-tuition fees – including those collected by student unions – optional:
“That was an incredibly exhilarating case, and it was such an honour to represent so many student leaders who came forward to challenge this policy,” Century says. “In the years that have passed since, many student leaders who were around at that time and fought against the so-called Student Choice Initiative have stories to tell about that struggle.
“To be able to be a lawyer playing a role in opposing that kind of a policy was a huge honour,” he adds.
On his path to Goldblatt Partners:
Century decided he wanted to be a refugee lawyer as a student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. He interned with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Criminal Court, the Downtown Legal Services clinic at UofT, and the Canadian Council for Refugees.
When he graduated and was clerking for the Supreme Court of Canada, however, Goldblatt Partners’ reputation as a progressive litigation firm compelled him to apply, even though the firm mainly focused on labour and employment matters at the time. The firm had “a general value system that resonated with me,” Century recalls.
And on how his career seems to be coming full-circle:
After joining the firm, Century continued volunteering with organizations focused on refugee issues even as he honed his labour and employment practice. But over the past few years, “my career has come full circle in some sense because I have started partnering with refugee lawyers taking on civil claims against the Canadian government relating to state misconduct.
“I’m not a refugee lawyer in that I don’t practise immigration and refugee law,” he says. “But I increasingly do civil cases that raise issues relating to immigration and refugee law.” In April, one of those cases – a lawsuit alleging that the Canadian Border Services Agency deliberately withheld information that could have prevented a Jamaican man’s deportation – was featured on the front page of the Toronto Star.
It’s a direction Century wants to keep pursuing, he says.
“I have always been passionate about the rights of refugees and migrants,” he says. “Oftentimes there are terrible wrongs that are committed in the immigration and refugee law sphere, and the lawyers who are defending these people… are on the front lines of getting their clients out of jail or preventing their unjust deportations,” he says. “But rarely is there consideration at the end of the day for accountability for the wrongs that have been committed. And what I mean by that is civil claims.
“This is an area that I’ve been really fortunate to practise in, partnering with some excellent immigration lawyers in bringing forward these cases as state accountability claims,” he adds. “And it’s an area that I think has potential to continue to grow.”
Lawyers
Practice Areas
Civil Litigation, Class Action Litigation, Constitutional Law, Public Interest Litigation