DESI DIARY

SETTING THE STAGE FOR GENERATIONAL CHANGE

Guri Pannu with Luanda Campbell.

On April 28, Guri Pannu hosted the Black and Indigenous Student Event with Enbridge, Bay Street professional and Dragon’s Den member Wes Hall and Chief Justice Tulloch, the first Black Chief Justice appointed to the Court of Appeal and Black Chief Justice of any province.

This is a networking/celebration event for Black and Indigenous first year law students.

“Public outrage around the killing of George Floyd sparked a movement with a number of corporations posting messages pledging support to do more against anti-black racism and to increase diversity as part of a broad spectrum of environment, social, and governance (ESG) mandates,” says Pannu, who had spearheaded the Conquer COVID movement. “Some of the responses seemed legitimate while others were being done for fear of cancel culture if nothing was said. Using the same momentum/energy from Conquer Covid/This Is Our Shot, we wanted to provide more opportunities for Black and Indigenous students in the energy sector.

“It started with Luanda Campbell, a Black single mother of three working as part of our security team. She’s a friend of mine, and I was one of the few colleagues who knew her personal story. At the time, she worked three jobs (Enbridge, retail at Shoppers Drug Mart, and the Nature Store) to provide for her family.

“At one our internal meetings on anti-black racism, she shared that she was suspended from school in grade 7 for writing a book review on a Black author. The energy sector that I work in is traditionally white and male dominated, and many of my colleagues were shocked and could not comprehend how a student in Canada, and specifically in Scarborough, could be suspended for writing about a Black author. Following that experience, Luanda and I thought about how we could leverage this awareness of our colleagues to help make the legal profession and the energy sector more diverse by providing meaningful jobs for Black and Indigenous students who lack access, networking opportunities, and have little to no guidance in the business and legal world.

“We partnered with Black North to provide scholarship opportunities and jobs to Black and Indigenous law students. In our first year we provided $50,000 of scholarships to law students in Ontario. We piloted our own mentorship program by offering Luanda’s daughter, Kafela and Emmanuel, a student from Nigeria, summer jobs in our law department and provided several networking opportunities for them to work at law firms. Emmanuel will be working for one of the largest law firms in Canada. Kafela received a scholarship from BlackNorth, Wes Hall’s initiative to end anti-black racism in Canada.

Guri Pannu flanked by Alex Heuton and Diana Audino.

“Following the success of our program, we expanded our pilot by creating a formal mentorship program by having our lawyers as well as the Chief Legal Officer guide, network, provide career planning, opportunities to 15 Black and Indigenous first year law students. A number of the students have been hired at some of the largest law firms in Canada and with large multinational companies. We will be launching the program across North America this fall.

“I was always impressed by Luanda but she wasn’t always ‘seen’ by others as she was quietly working to put food on the table and support her three kids. She juggled her jobs and family responsibilities. Through her efforts with the scholarships and networking with Black North and the Ontario Law Schools, she is taking on a new role and is the new student recruitment lead for North America for Enbridge. Next year she will be looking to hire approximately 300 black students to Enbridge.

“It is pretty amazing to see all the lives and generational change she has brought about and it all started from her sharing the experience of being suspended at school.”