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Blair A. Major
Assistant Professor
LLB (Alberta), LLM (McGill), DCL (McGill)
Blair joined the TRU Faculty of Law in 2018, first as a lecturer and later as an Assistant Professor (in 2020).
After completing his first law degree at the University of Alberta, Blair practiced law in Edmonton, Alberta. Blair remains a member of the Law Society of Alberta. Blair completed his graduate studies at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, where he received both a master’s (LLM) and a doctorate (DCL) in law.
Blair’s primary area of research and writing is the subject of law and religion, in both the Canadian and international contexts. Blair’s scholarship includes a mix of legal theory and doctrine. Blair has published papers in various Canadian law journals, and was awarded a prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for his doctoral research.
Blair teaches courses on Administrative Law, LAP (Law, Administration and Policy), Law and Religion, and Remedies.
Publications
- “Making Something New: Legal Education in a Pandemic” in Shauna Van Praagh & David Sandomierski (eds), Collage sur le droit et le savoir en temps de pandémie / Law and Learning in the Time of Pandemic - A Collage, (2020) 25–4 Lex-Electronica, pp. 93-98, online
- “Religious proselytization in Canadian law: the residue in the periphery” (2020) 98 Supreme Court Law Review 2d 213.
- “Book review: Seth D Kaplan, Human Rights in Thick and Thin Societies: Universality Without Uniformity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)” (2018) 11 International Journal for Religious Freedom 133-137.
- “Translating the Conflict over Trinity Western University's Proposed Law School” (2017) 43:1 Queen’s Law Journal 175.
- “TWU Law: The Boundary and Ethos of the Legal Community” (2017) 55:1 Alberta Law Review 167.
- “Religion and Law in R v NS: Finding Space to Re-think the Balancing Analysis” (2015) 32:1 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 25.
Conferences
- June 2021, “Law and Religious Communities in COVID-19.” Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Conference.
- June 2019, “Law and Religion: A Friendly Conversation” at the Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Conference, UBC Peter A. Allard School of Law, Vancouver BC, June 2019.
- May 2017, McGill Graduate Law Students Association Annual Graduate Law Conference, McGill Faculty of Law.“Ktunaxa Nation v BC: Looking for the Evolution of Religious Freedom in Canada.”
- June 2016, “The Trinity Western University Law School Proposal: Exploring the Relationship between TWU and the Law Societies of Canada as an Interaction Between Communities.” Law and Society Association Annual Conference, New Orleans LA.
- May 2016, “The Trinity Western University Law School Proposal: Considered as an Opportunity for Community Building.” Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Conference, Calgary AB.
- May 2015, “‘Perfect Strangers:’ the Study of Law as Religion.” UBC Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Graduate Student Conference, UBC Peter A Allard School of Law, Vancouver BC.
- May 2014, “Religion and law in R v NS: Finding Space to Re-think the Balancing Analysis.” Osgoode Forum: Law, Dissent and Power, Osgoode Hall Law School graduate student conference, Toronto ON.
