Sign up for our Slingshot Summer Studio Information Session: Thursday, April 25 from 6:30–7:30 p.m.
Branksome Hall News
The Law of the Land
The U.S. has shown us just how perplexing elections can be. Jess SPINDLER'04 makes sense of election law, for all of us.
Jess Spindler has seen elections from every angle: as a volunteer, a political staffer, a campaign manager, a provincial candidate and as in-house counsel to the Liberal Party of Canada. Now, the Winnipeg lawyer has added a new perspective to the list: as co-author of a book on the subject, Election Law in Canada, 2nd Edition (2020: LexisNexis Canada).
“In 2018, there was a pretty significant overhaul of the Canada Elections Act and it was my job as legal counsel to the Party to make sure we were conversant with all of it,” says Spindler. “There weren’t a lot of texts that summarized all of these requirements.”
The first edition of Election Law in Canada was written by Kitchener/Waterloo-area lawyer Donald Bourgeois, and Spindler used it as a resource when she took the Liberal Party position. However, the book was written prior to the dramatic changes in the law, changes that Spindler knew inside-out. She reached out to Bourgeois to see if he’d be interested in working together to update it and a project was born.
“He was keen and experienced at writing textbooks,” says Spindler. “It was really nice for me to work with someone experienced in the process. It’s a big undertaking. Most people wouldn’t realize the amount of work and research that goes into every single page.”
The book is written to be accessible to lawyers, law students and anyone involved in a political campaign.
“Campaigns are a lot of fun, but they are fast-paced and it can be a challenge to keep track of all the filing deadlines and other requirements,” Spindler says. “We put this together to be a resource.”
Politics has been in Spindler’s blood since her undergraduate days at the University of Guelph where she was a member of the Guelph Young Liberals. Her own effort at running for Ontario provincial office in 2018 was unsuccessful, but she calls the campaign “a fantastic experience and a lot of fun.”
“A lot of Branksome classmates came out to help and some current students joined in, so it was a reunion of sorts.”
If any of them are still involved with political campaigns, there’s now a wonderful book they can turn to for guidance.
“In 2018, there was a pretty significant overhaul of the Canada Elections Act and it was my job as legal counsel to the Party to make sure we were conversant with all of it,” says Spindler. “There weren’t a lot of texts that summarized all of these requirements.”
The first edition of Election Law in Canada was written by Kitchener/Waterloo-area lawyer Donald Bourgeois, and Spindler used it as a resource when she took the Liberal Party position. However, the book was written prior to the dramatic changes in the law, changes that Spindler knew inside-out. She reached out to Bourgeois to see if he’d be interested in working together to update it and a project was born.
“He was keen and experienced at writing textbooks,” says Spindler. “It was really nice for me to work with someone experienced in the process. It’s a big undertaking. Most people wouldn’t realize the amount of work and research that goes into every single page.”
The book is written to be accessible to lawyers, law students and anyone involved in a political campaign.
“Campaigns are a lot of fun, but they are fast-paced and it can be a challenge to keep track of all the filing deadlines and other requirements,” Spindler says. “We put this together to be a resource.”
Politics has been in Spindler’s blood since her undergraduate days at the University of Guelph where she was a member of the Guelph Young Liberals. Her own effort at running for Ontario provincial office in 2018 was unsuccessful, but she calls the campaign “a fantastic experience and a lot of fun.”
“A lot of Branksome classmates came out to help and some current students joined in, so it was a reunion of sorts.”
If any of them are still involved with political campaigns, there’s now a wonderful book they can turn to for guidance.
1
/
20
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We wish to acknowledge this land on which Branksome operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and go to school on this land.
Setting the new standard for girls' education everywhere takes collective action. From all of us.
