Meet Our Board

Laura Bisaillon is from Québec and has lived in Ontario since 2013. She is a sociologist and associate professor in the Department of Health and Society and the Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne at the University of Toronto.  Her university course “AIDS and its Legacies” examines Canadian contributions to the social, cultural and historical study of HIV. She is also the author of a book, Screening Out, and the producer of a film, The Unmaking of Medical Inadmissibility, which both analyse Canada’s mandatory immigration HIV testing policy from the perspective of applicants living with HIV. Her relationship with the HIV Legal Network began in 2008 when she initiated a doctoral study of Canada’s immigration medical program and its treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, with Richard Elliott, then director of the Legal Network, playing a vital advisory role in this process. Since then, Laura has maintained her involvement with the organization in various ways: arranging public screenings of its films, participating in feminist dialogues about HIV criminalization and sexual assault, partnering with staff for public education, and most recently, cooperating on a legal reform grant application. Laura looks forward to contributing her subject matter expertise in immigration and travel, testing, and women’s rights to the Legal Network through her role on the Board.

Jeansil’s contributions to the HIV sector span from volunteering for the Farah Foundation in the late 2000s to capacity building with Ugandan HIV-led organizations after his first undergraduate degree. His introduction to the HIV Legal Network came in 2012 when he attended the 4th Symposium on HIV, Law & Human Rights. Jeansil formally joined the orbit of the Legal Network as a Legal Policy Intern in the Summer of 2015. In his more than 15 years of contributing to the sector, he has worked at COCQ-SIDA, AIDS Community Care Montreal, and a variety of regional, provincial, and national consultation committees. As a proud Montrealer who completed his B.C.L./LL.B. at McGill’s Faculty of Law, he also obtained degrees in Communication Studies, Religious Studies, and Globalization from Concordia University.

Jeansil brings a holistic understanding of access to justice for people living with HIV, trans populations, migrants, and the broader 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Jeansil does not shy away from his Filipino-Muslim heritage and status as a gay man of colour in Canada. As a proud Canadian immigrant, he seeks to break down institutional forms of oppression and engage with a society that does not tolerate any form of gender-based, sexual orientation-based, religion-based or ethnoculturally based discrimination. Currently, Jeansil is a Board Member at the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada’s Refugee Protection Division working as Strategic Operations and Program Manager of the Gender-related Task Force (GRTF) and the Task Force for Less Complex Claims (TFLCC), and Chief of Staff for the GRTF-TFLCC Assistant Deputy Chair’s Office.

Y.Y. Brandon Chen joined the Legal Network’s board of directors in 2021.

Y.Y. is a professor at University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. Trained as a lawyer and a social worker, his expertise lies in the areas of public and constitutional law, health law, and immigration and refugee law. His research leverages socio-legal studies and action research to critically examine health inequities facing noncitizens and racialized minorities, including those living with HIV.

Before embarking on a legal career, Y.Y. worked as a research coordinator at the Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment (CAAT), a coalition of organizations aiming to improve treatment and service access for marginalized people living with HIV. He was formerly a member of the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, the co-chair of CAAT, and a board member of Canadian Centre on Statelessness. He currently also sits on the governance committee of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Cohort Study.

Y.Y. worked at the Legal Network as a summer student while attending law school. He is thrilled to be a part of the Legal Network again.

Paulette is a Registered Nurse who has worked in the health care system for 38 years and believes that we can do a better job caring for the vulnerable. As a Metis person from northern Saskatchewan, she has witnessed the health disparities with her First Nation cousins and she bring this perspective with her. She has 15  years of board experience from local, provincial, and national groups. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Saskatchewan. Paulette has been nursing with the Saskatchewan Health Authority for 38 years in various positions: long term care, home care, Oncology/Hematology, Public Health Nursing and HIV Strategy Coordinator most current position for eight years.  One of her achievements was assisting to establish two rural harm reduction needle exchange sites in Cumberland House village and in the town of Nipawin.  Previously clients would have to travel up to 300 kilometers one way to obtain harm reduction supplies.

Paulette is honored to join the board of directors for the HIV Legal Network.  She has a passion to bring HIV services to clients as close to home as possible.  Having frank discussions with clients as to what they want for support/services has directed her work.  She looks forward to learning and collaborating with other board members to increase her knowledge and skills to support people living with HIV worldwide.

Thomas Iglesias Trombetta (they/he) is an immigrant from Sao Paulo, Brazil, currently living in Treaty 7 territory. Thomas graduated with a double major in Sociology and Global and Development Studies from the University of Alberta and shortly after beginning their career in harm reduction. They have experience as a caseworker at the John Howard Society, HIV educator, and HIV PrEP researcher. Thomas’ focus on 2SLGBTQ+ health equity allowed them to present to multiple audiences about inclusive health practices and systems in Canada.

Today, Thomas works at PurposeMed, the company that created Freddie, Frida, and Foria — three online services with the goal of increasing access to care for underserved communities. At Freddie and Foria, Thomas leads efforts in relationship building, key partnerships, and community engagement. They were part of the group that began Freddie, the largest PrEP provider in Canada today. Currently, they lead two advisory committees and a community fund, and organize fundraisers.

Thomas is passionate about art and social change through education, having written multiple articles on the intersection between 2SLGBTQ+ equity, HIV, and art. Additionally, they love hosting fundraisers and drag shows in Calgary!

Dr. Tiffany O’Donnell, MD, CCFP, is a family physician in Halifax/Kjipuktuk, Nova Scotia. She is certified in Addiction Medicine through the International Society of Addiction Medicine, and she currently practices out of the Wije’winen Health Centre and Mobile Outreach Street Health (MOSH) in Halifax.  A previous board member of the East Coast Prison Justice Society, she has an interest in prison health, and has collaborated with MOSH and other community agencies to develop a throughcare program for people who have been incarcerated. She is also the unit head for Professional Competencies 1 at Dalhousie University Medical School.

Louis Letellier de St-Just is a Canadian attorney (Montreal), legal expert, and educator specializing exclusively in health law since 1983, focusing primarily on the protection of human rights and freedoms, public health issues, and the organization and governance of health and social services. Quickly involved in HIV-AIDS concerns, over the years he has specialized more particularly in issues related to drug policies and aboriginal rights.

He co-founded Cactus Montréal in 1989, first needle exchange program in North America and supervised injection site in the province of Quebec (2017). He is currently chairman of its board of directors.

A member of the Quebec Association of addiction workers (AIDQ) board of directors since 2018, he currently serves as its chairman.

Mr. Letellier St-Just was part of a legal team that represented an international coalition before the Supreme Court of Canada, including the HIV Legal Network, to defend the relevance of supervised consumption sites as life-saving health services.

As a professor, he created and currently teaches the course Drugs, Public Policy and Legislation at Sherbrooke University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

His international experience includes working for the World Health Organisation (WHO), collaboration with Harm Reduction International, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), as well with several francophone West African countries’ organizations and helped set up the first course in human rights and drug policy.

Regularly invited by Canadian media to comment on drug policy issues and challenges, he has also published articles in specialized publications.

Natasha is a longtime activist for sex workers, people who use drugs, and people living with HIV. She works currently as a program Coordinator at Peers Victoria Resources Society. She has been active in the sex worker rights movement for over 15 years, travelling to conferences and meetings to present on her experiences as a woman in sex work and to ensure inclusion whenever policies are being discussed as we move forward. She loves to engage in art and crafting during the times when she is not fighting for equality and transparency for all people!!!

Shakir Rahim is Director of the Criminal Justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He has served on the boards of the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP), Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN), AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT), and HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO). Shakir is also a member of the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization and past member of the Canadian Bar Association Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Executive. He has worked more broadly with under-served communities at the Community and Legal Aid Services Programme, a legal clinic in the Jane & Finch community, and Fair Change Community Services, which serves persons who are housing insecure.

Rai Reece is an assistant professor and interdisciplinary scholar-activist, whose work broadly examines how carceral processes in Canada are connected to colonialism and white supremacy. Her work specifically examines the intersection of punishment/criminalization and misogynoir (racism that targets Black women/women-identified folx), and white settler capitalism. Much of her work emphasizes and focuses on community-based collaboration, experience, and self-reflection. Since 2005 she has been involved with anti-prison work with prisoners and ex-prisoners. She has conducted frontline (one-on-one and group) work with prisoners, street active youth, trans folx, and in the domestic violence sector. She has facilitated numerous workshops on anti-Black racism, prison health, and equity. Her work also incorporates the importance of examining the connection between abolition and harm reduction through a racial lens. She works from a place of healing, reflection, and decolonization as a way to deeply reflect on personal, inter-personal, and collective care for ourselves and our communities.

Emily van der Meulen joined the Legal Network’s board of directors in 2020. She is a professor in the Department of Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she conducts participatory research on drug policy, harm reduction, prison health, sex work, and surveillance.

Among her current projects is a study on the ways in which anti-trafficking policy is made and shaped through narratives of white saviourhood and fantasises of “rescue,” and another that traces how biometric technologies can reinforce existing embodied inequities, especially with regard to race, gender, and disability.

Emily is a long-time supporter of the Legal Network, and has worked with the organization on research related to prison-based needle and syringe programs and the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act.

She also has over 20 years of experience on various boards of directors, steering committees, and activist groups in the areas of sex work, HIV, prisoner justice, reproductive justice, and more.

thom vernon is a multi-media artist, teacher, and scholar. His experience of living with HIV for almost four decades informs his advocacy, which is expressed through his creative and critical writing, his performance, directing, and art practice, and his teaching and facilitating, both academic and community-based. A U.S. migrant to Canada, he is personally familiar with the immigration obstacles faced by people living with HIV. In addition to a long career in theatre/TV/film, thom is the author of two novels: The Drifts (Coach House 2010) and I Met Death & Sex Through My Friend, Tom Meuley (Guernica Editions 2024). He holds a B.A. (summa cum laude) in Philosophy (California State University, Los Angeles), a M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a terminal Masters in Gender Studies (University of Southern California), and a Ph.D. in English Literature with a Specialization in Creative Writing (University of New Brunswick). thom is a Vanier Doctoral Scholar, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) award recipient, a Dr. William S. Lewis Doctoral Fellow, and a Magee Doctoral Fellow. Currently a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher at York University, his creative and critical research transmutes social dynamics of harm (failure, stigma) into sites of agency, capacity-building, and insight.