CELA is delighted to share that Ramani Nadarajah has been chosen as the 2025 recipient of the Tom Marshall Award of Excellence. This award was established to recognize, honour, and celebrate the outstanding achievements of lawyers practicing in Ontario in the public sector sphere. Congratulations Ramani on this well-deserved honour!
Following are the opening remarks from Theresa McClenaghan, CELA Executive Director and Counsel, who presented the award, as well as Ramani’s acceptance remarks from the awards ceremony.
Tribute Remarks – Theresa McClenaghan
I am delighted to be able to pay tribute to the public interest legal career of Ramani Nadarajah tonight.
Thank you, Section Chair Farah Malik, and thank you to Tom and Patricia Marshall, and to past award recipients Daniel Abrahams and Paul Dube, for being here to participate in this significant award. Also here tonight from CELA are two of our colleagues, CELA lawyers Joseph Castrilli and Jacqueline Wilson, as well as the Co-Chair of our Board of Directors, Graham Rempe. They all join me along with the rest of our staff and Board members in our heart-felt congratulations to Ramani on her receipt of the Tom Marshall Award of Excellence for Public Sector Lawyers.
Ramani’s legal practice has been synonymous with public interest law. After serving Ontarians as a prosecutor with the Ontario Ministry of Environment for eight years, she joined CELA as legal counsel, and brought her well-honed litigation and analytical skills to our legal clinic. As a specialty legal aid clinic, CELA occupies a unique niche among legal clinics, and among environmental non-governmental organizations alike. CELA’s work focuses on the impact of environmental impacts on people in their homes, communities, schools and immediate environments with a lens specifically attuned to the inequitable and unjust ways that those impacts hit some among us more than others, especially those with fewer resources, power, or a say in decision making.
Ramani has taken on litigation cases and law reform issues that are emblematic of these impacts. With persistence and determination, she fought tirelessly for Ontario’s law against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation after she saw clients who feared to speak out in public decision making in their communities due to such threats. She has repeatedly taken on cases that are “rule of law” cases, appreciating the high importance of ensuring that the law is applied even-handedly and equitably, as aspirational as that may remain.
Ramani brought her keen insight from years of representing clients who ran into brick walls, seeking environmental justice, in her work during a secondment at the Law Commission of Ontario, on a significant and far-reaching report on needed reforms to environmental rights in Ontario.
Ramani is a fearless, persistent, effective and effective advocate. She gets to heart of legal issues in complex cases, rolls up her sleeves, and ensures that her advice to clients, her advocacy with decision makers, and the briefs, submissions, and presentations she delivers are thorough, professional, and hard-hitting. Her clients always appreciate her hard-working ethic and her empathetic respect for their perspectives.
The people of Walkerton were the beneficiaries of Ramani’s legal talents during the Walkerton Inquiry following that drinking water tragedy in the early 2000s when we represented the Concerned Citizens group of that community. Her cross-examination skills and refusal to be intimidated by top provincial politicians on the other side of the table ensured that she was able to work with our team to get to the heart of what went wrong.
Recently, Ramani has co-represented members of a First Nation community who have been subjected to undue levels of benzene air pollution in response to industry challenges to provincial and federal orders that are now resulting in some changes for the better. Just this week, Ramani’s in-depth work has resulted in the submission of a very significant request for review of Ontario’s air pollution cumulative effects policy under the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights. At the same time, she has been able to get out to some of the affected communities as well as respond to media questions so as to clearly and plainly explain what is at stake and what needs to change to end decades of hardship in those places.
Ramani is also constantly looking to the future and ensuring that the advocates of the future have a keen public interest perspective. In addition to her extensive mentorship of law students and young professionals, she has also been a terrific mentor within our staff which is highly appreciated and of huge value.
I am so honoured to be a colleague of Ramani’s over many years, and to be with all of you tonight for her acceptance of this significant award. Congratulations again, Ramani.
Acceptance Speech – Ramani Nadarajah
Good evening,
Thank you so much, Theresa, for your very kind and generous remarks.
I am very touched that Mr. Marshall is here with us this evening.
It is an honour to receive this award from the Ontario Bar Association.
I regard it as recognition of all the work my colleagues do at the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
I am fortunate to work with an incredible team of lawyers and staff who are dedicated to serving the public interest.
CELA has afforded an extraordinary opportunity to serve the public, particularly low-income and marginalized communities, on a broad range of legal issues.
My legal career began thirty-seven years ago at the Ministry of the Environment, after my call to the bar. I spent most of those early years doing prosecutions and hearings throughout the province. At that time, environmental law was beginning to flourish.
Since then, we have seen measures to improve transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making and enhanced access to justice.
I have been fortunate to have been both a witness and a participant in that process. I am cognizant, however, that in these challenging times, these gains and the rule of law cannot be taken for granted.
I was born in Sri Lanka and spent my formative years abroad. I came to Canada to study law at Osgoode Hall Law School. At that time, I did not know anyone at Osgoode, or in Canada for that matter, with the exception of my sister, who was attending medical school at the University of Toronto.
Consequently, I did not have any connection or ties with the legal profession.
Nevertheless, I have always felt very much at home in the environmental law community from the get-go.
The environmental bar is a specialized and relatively small group, marked by a very high degree of collegiality. Indeed, there are friendships in this room that span decades. It has been very gratifying for me to be a member of the environmental bar in Ontario.
This award is particularly meaningful to me because it is named after Tom Marshall, a lawyer who has been exemplary in his dedication to public service.
I had the privilege of meeting him many years ago. When I was a junior lawyer at the Ministry of Environment, I went on a secondment to the Ministry of the Attorney General, Crown Law Office – Civil.
I recall being summoned to Tom Marshall’s office and being assigned a legal research memo. The details of that memo escape me. However, I do distinctly remember that being tasked with the responsibility of doing legal research for Tom Marshall was the highlight of that secondment!
There are many people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for this moment. There are too many to name. But I want to specifically thank my parents for their many sacrifices. They would have been absolutely thrilled about this event.
I would also like to thank my sister Sumathi, and my niece Myra, for always showing up, as they have tonight.
Finally, I would also like to thank my partner Mark Winfield and our children Maya and Alan for all their love and support.
They are the ones who make this journey worthwhile – and for that I am deeply grateful.
Thank you.
CELA Lawyer Ramani Nadarajah Wins Prestigious Legal Award
CELA is delighted to share that Ramani Nadarajah has been chosen as the 2025 recipient of the Tom Marshall Award of Excellence. This award was established to recognize, honour, and celebrate the outstanding achievements of lawyers practicing in Ontario in the public sector sphere. Congratulations Ramani on this well-deserved honour!
Following are the opening remarks from Theresa McClenaghan, CELA Executive Director and Counsel, who presented the award, as well as Ramani’s acceptance remarks from the awards ceremony.
Tribute Remarks – Theresa McClenaghan
I am delighted to be able to pay tribute to the public interest legal career of Ramani Nadarajah tonight.
Thank you, Section Chair Farah Malik, and thank you to Tom and Patricia Marshall, and to past award recipients Daniel Abrahams and Paul Dube, for being here to participate in this significant award. Also here tonight from CELA are two of our colleagues, CELA lawyers Joseph Castrilli and Jacqueline Wilson, as well as the Co-Chair of our Board of Directors, Graham Rempe. They all join me along with the rest of our staff and Board members in our heart-felt congratulations to Ramani on her receipt of the Tom Marshall Award of Excellence for Public Sector Lawyers.
Ramani’s legal practice has been synonymous with public interest law. After serving Ontarians as a prosecutor with the Ontario Ministry of Environment for eight years, she joined CELA as legal counsel, and brought her well-honed litigation and analytical skills to our legal clinic. As a specialty legal aid clinic, CELA occupies a unique niche among legal clinics, and among environmental non-governmental organizations alike. CELA’s work focuses on the impact of environmental impacts on people in their homes, communities, schools and immediate environments with a lens specifically attuned to the inequitable and unjust ways that those impacts hit some among us more than others, especially those with fewer resources, power, or a say in decision making.
Ramani has taken on litigation cases and law reform issues that are emblematic of these impacts. With persistence and determination, she fought tirelessly for Ontario’s law against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation after she saw clients who feared to speak out in public decision making in their communities due to such threats. She has repeatedly taken on cases that are “rule of law” cases, appreciating the high importance of ensuring that the law is applied even-handedly and equitably, as aspirational as that may remain.
Ramani brought her keen insight from years of representing clients who ran into brick walls, seeking environmental justice, in her work during a secondment at the Law Commission of Ontario, on a significant and far-reaching report on needed reforms to environmental rights in Ontario.
Ramani is a fearless, persistent, effective and effective advocate. She gets to heart of legal issues in complex cases, rolls up her sleeves, and ensures that her advice to clients, her advocacy with decision makers, and the briefs, submissions, and presentations she delivers are thorough, professional, and hard-hitting. Her clients always appreciate her hard-working ethic and her empathetic respect for their perspectives.
The people of Walkerton were the beneficiaries of Ramani’s legal talents during the Walkerton Inquiry following that drinking water tragedy in the early 2000s when we represented the Concerned Citizens group of that community. Her cross-examination skills and refusal to be intimidated by top provincial politicians on the other side of the table ensured that she was able to work with our team to get to the heart of what went wrong.
Recently, Ramani has co-represented members of a First Nation community who have been subjected to undue levels of benzene air pollution in response to industry challenges to provincial and federal orders that are now resulting in some changes for the better. Just this week, Ramani’s in-depth work has resulted in the submission of a very significant request for review of Ontario’s air pollution cumulative effects policy under the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights. At the same time, she has been able to get out to some of the affected communities as well as respond to media questions so as to clearly and plainly explain what is at stake and what needs to change to end decades of hardship in those places.
Ramani is also constantly looking to the future and ensuring that the advocates of the future have a keen public interest perspective. In addition to her extensive mentorship of law students and young professionals, she has also been a terrific mentor within our staff which is highly appreciated and of huge value.
I am so honoured to be a colleague of Ramani’s over many years, and to be with all of you tonight for her acceptance of this significant award. Congratulations again, Ramani.
Acceptance Speech – Ramani Nadarajah
Good evening,
Thank you so much, Theresa, for your very kind and generous remarks.
I am very touched that Mr. Marshall is here with us this evening.
It is an honour to receive this award from the Ontario Bar Association.
I regard it as recognition of all the work my colleagues do at the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
I am fortunate to work with an incredible team of lawyers and staff who are dedicated to serving the public interest.
CELA has afforded an extraordinary opportunity to serve the public, particularly low-income and marginalized communities, on a broad range of legal issues.
My legal career began thirty-seven years ago at the Ministry of the Environment, after my call to the bar. I spent most of those early years doing prosecutions and hearings throughout the province. At that time, environmental law was beginning to flourish.
Since then, we have seen measures to improve transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making and enhanced access to justice.
I have been fortunate to have been both a witness and a participant in that process. I am cognizant, however, that in these challenging times, these gains and the rule of law cannot be taken for granted.
I was born in Sri Lanka and spent my formative years abroad. I came to Canada to study law at Osgoode Hall Law School. At that time, I did not know anyone at Osgoode, or in Canada for that matter, with the exception of my sister, who was attending medical school at the University of Toronto.
Consequently, I did not have any connection or ties with the legal profession.
Nevertheless, I have always felt very much at home in the environmental law community from the get-go.
The environmental bar is a specialized and relatively small group, marked by a very high degree of collegiality. Indeed, there are friendships in this room that span decades. It has been very gratifying for me to be a member of the environmental bar in Ontario.
This award is particularly meaningful to me because it is named after Tom Marshall, a lawyer who has been exemplary in his dedication to public service.
I had the privilege of meeting him many years ago. When I was a junior lawyer at the Ministry of Environment, I went on a secondment to the Ministry of the Attorney General, Crown Law Office – Civil.
I recall being summoned to Tom Marshall’s office and being assigned a legal research memo. The details of that memo escape me. However, I do distinctly remember that being tasked with the responsibility of doing legal research for Tom Marshall was the highlight of that secondment!
There are many people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for this moment. There are too many to name. But I want to specifically thank my parents for their many sacrifices. They would have been absolutely thrilled about this event.
I would also like to thank my sister Sumathi, and my niece Myra, for always showing up, as they have tonight.
Finally, I would also like to thank my partner Mark Winfield and our children Maya and Alan for all their love and support.
They are the ones who make this journey worthwhile – and for that I am deeply grateful.
Thank you.
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