Parmbir Gill is a determined, skillful advocate for people charged with criminal offences, unions facing mounting legal challenges, and individuals subject to workplace or regulatory injustice.
Parmbir’s practice encompasses criminal defence, labour law, employment law and professional discipline and regulation. To each of these sometimes-overlapping areas, he brings a proven ability to formulate and deliver strong, persuasive arguments in litigatory settings. He has excellent research and litigation skills, a strong understanding of policy and a passionate commitment to the labour movement and broader working-class struggle.
His track record includes defending criminally charged individuals at trial and on appeal, and representing workers and trade unions before civil courts and tribunals. He has appeared and made arguments at the Supreme Court of Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Justice, as well as at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the Canada Industrial Relations Board and the Discipline Committee of the Ontario College of Teachers. In each of these spheres he has achieved notable results, including securing a stay of proceedings in a manslaughter case, obtaining a rare publication ban for a teacher, securing unpaid wages and wage increases for workers, and creating a new legal test for determining the scope of a casual employee bargaining unit.
Prior to joining UPFH in 2019, Parmbir honed his skills during a year-long clerkship at the Ontario Court of Appeal, assisting judges on a range of complex civil and criminal matters. He had previously articled at the Ontario Ministry of Labour, where he gained trial experience prosecuting employers for offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
Parmbir is a member of the Law Union of Ontario, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association and the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers. He is serving his second term as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Parkdale Community Legal Services. He holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School, an MPhil in Economic and Social History from Oxford University and a BA in History from the University of Toronto.
Parmbir has published papers, opinions and commentary in various academic and popular outlets, some of which are included below.
Decisions of Interest
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An appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada of a manslaughter conviction in which all five judges of the Court accepted the defence’s principal arguments and ordered a stay of proceedings for unreasonable delay.
- A displacement application for certification on behalf of an applicant trade union that, while lost, nevertheless established a new test for “workplace attachment” in a bargaining unit of casual employees.
- A case in which charges of sexual assault and sexual exploitation involving separate complainants occurring 25 years apart were withdrawn after the defence successfully argued that separate trials be held for each complaint and that the Crown be barred from leading evidence from each complainant across the two trials.
Ontario College of Teachers v ZZD, 2021 ONOCT 19
- A successful application for a publication ban, rarely granted, on our client’s name in a professional discipline case before the Ontario College of Teachers.