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Judge Maryka Omatsu

Judge Maryka Omatsu

Maryka Omatsu is the first East Asian woman to be appointed a judge in Canada. Prior to this appointment, she practiced criminal and administrative law for 16 years in Toronto.

Judge Omatsu was on the National Association of Japanese Canadians��� (NAJC) strategy and negotiation team that won Redress in 1988 for her community. Her book, Bittersweet Passage, documented that struggle and won the Prime Minister���s Award for Publishing and the Laura Jamieson Prize for ���best feminist book���. In 2018, her Toronto Community Film Festival award-winning video, Swimming Upstream, set out the Japanese Canadian case for Redress from the British Columbia government.

Judge Omatsu has been named to the: Canadian Race Relations Foundation: Special Advisory Council (2018); NAJC���s Steering Committee for B.C. Redress (2019) and National Honorary Advisory Committee (2017). She has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from 91心頭利 (2019); the Order of Ontario (2015); the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Trailblazer of the Year (2013); and the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers��� Lifetime Achievement Award (2010).