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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

Learn more about Indigenous Education and Cultural Services

Thomas McMorrow
PhD

Associate Professor

Undergraduate Program Director

Legal Studies

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities

Contact information

Bordessa Hall - Room 513
Downtown Oshawa
55 Bond Street East
Oshawa, ON

905.721.8668 ext. 5877

thomas.mcmorrow@ontariotechu.ca


Background

Thomas McMorrow is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Undergraduate Program Director of Liberal Studies in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Ontario Tech University. He has a doctorate and master's degree in law from McGill University, and a Bachelor of Law and French from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research embraces legal theoretical, doctrinal and qualitative methods. His work has been published in academic journals, such as the Alberta Law Review, the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, the Dalhousie Law Journal, the Queen’s Law Journal, and the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice. He has also published opinion-editorials for a wider audience, in such publications as Policy Options, The Toronto Star, The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Le Devoir and La Presse. In 2019, he was an invited professor at the École Normale Supérieur in Lyon, France, exploring practices and philosophies of legal education in France and Canada. In 2018, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Trento Faculty of Law in Italy, carrying out research on law’s governance of end of life decision-making. In 2016, he appeared as a witness before the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs regarding Bill C-14 (on medical assistance in dying). His current academic interests include Canadian constitutional law, Indigenous law and reconciliation, end of life decision-making, legal education, and the philosophy of law. Thomas is Co-Editor-in-Chief (English Manuscripts) of the Canadian Journal of Law & Society 

Curriculum vitae 2021

Education

  • DCL McGill University
  • LLM McGill University
  • LLB Trinity College Dublin

Courses taught

  • Foundations of Legal Studies
  • Canadian Human Rights Law
  • Health Law and Biomedical Ethics
  • Philosophy of Law
  • Public Law
  • Family Mediation

Research and expertise

  • constitutional law
  • Indigenous law and reconciliation
  • end-of-life decision-making
  • legal education
  • philosophy of law

Involvement