Collin May

Collin May is a lawyer in Calgary, Alberta; an Adjunct Lecturer in Community Health Sciences with the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary; and a human rights activist focussing on issues related to LGTBQ+ rights, Indigenous and elderly health equity, and academic freedom.

Collin’s academic and legal interests focus on secondary trauma resulting from poorly managed or unfair complaints and investigation processes in healthcare settings, by professional regulators and in the workplace generally. Collin has presented to generalist and academic audiences on patient-centred care and medical and legal responses to adverse events in healthcare.

Collin holds degrees in political philosophy, religion (specializing in medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian thought) and law from Harvard University, the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales (Paris), Dalhousie Law School, and the University of Alberta. From 1997 to 2002, Collin worked with the United Nations International Telecommunications Union and then the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent in Geneva, Switzerland.

Collin has served on a number of boards and tribunals and for a brief period in 2022, was Chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Tribunals. His tenure as Chief came to an end following false allegations of racism and Islamophobia from a Canadian Islamist group and the opposition New Democratic Party regarding an academic book review Collin wrote in 2009 on renowned British-Israeli historian, Efraim Karsh’s book, Islamic Imperialism: A History.

Collin currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Institute of Workplace Harassment and Violence where he advocates for the protection of minority communities and women from workplace bullying and violence