Quebec judge, TIFF artistic director among UWI Toronto gala honourees

TORONTO — Quebec’s first appointed black judge and the artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival will be two of the honourees at this year’s University of West Indies (UWI) Toronto Benefit Gala.

Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré and Cameron Bailey will receive awards along with social justice champion Charlie Coffey and Catherine Chandler-Critchlow, executive director of the Centre for Excellence in Financial Services Education.

The sixth annual UWI Toronto Benefit Gala, set for March 28 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, will raise funds for scholarship programs.

The UWI educates students from 18 countries and territories in the Caribbean at campuses in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

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Westmoreland-Traoré was appointed a judge of the Court of Quebec for the District of Montreal in 1999 after three decades of practicing law, teaching law and serving on a number of councils and associations in Quebec and Ontario.

Born in Montreal to immigrants from Guyana, she earned her law degree from the Université de Montréal and a doctorate from the University of Paris.

In 1991, Westmoreland-Traoré was named an officer of the Ordre national du Québec.

Bailey has been artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) since 2008 but began programming for the festival in 1990. He has also served on a number of boards and, last year, taught a course in programming and curation at the University of Toronto.

Born in London, he grew up in England and Barbados before settling in Canada, where he worked as a film writer and broadcaster.

Coffey will accept the inaugural G. Raymond Chang Award, named in honour of the late philanthropist and longtime patron of the UWI Toronto Gala.

This year’s event will also pay tribute to the Scotiabank Caribbean Carnival and George Brown College.

Previous honourees include The Voice season five winner Tessanne Chin, veteran MP Hedy Fry, reggae artist Jimmy Cliff and boxer Lennox Lewis.