Alejandro Vivar spent much of his youth and early adulthood involved in Toronto's drug trade, eventually serving the equivalent of 16 years in prison. Today, he works as a tourism and travel coach, helps others build online businesses, and hopes to begin mentoring at-risk youth in the community he grew up in.

Alejandro grew up in Toronto's Christie Pitts neighbourhood in a stable, hardworking family, but was drawn into the drug trade as a teenager. He was acquitted of first-degree murder as a young man, tried briefly to leave the life behind, and ultimately built a large drug operation before an extended police investigation led to his arrest and sentencing. During his time in prison, he found therapy, public speaking, and fitness, later launching a community fitness program in his old neighbourhood. He speaks candidly about the choices that shaped his path, the toll those years took, and why he believes earlier support and mentorship could change outcomes for young people today.

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📍 FOLLOW ALEJANDRO:
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AT 19, HARVEY BROWNSTONE told his parents he was gay. They cut him off completely, financially and emotionally. He went from a comfortable home to stealing food from wedding receptions to survive. Nineteen years later, he became one of the youngest judges in Canadian history, and Canada's first openly gay judge.

Harvey Brownstone practiced law for 12 years before being appointed to the bench at 38. He served as a judge for 26 years across Toronto and Niagara, including a stretch as senior administrative justice, before leaving to build a media career that now reaches 10 million viewers a week through Harvey Brownstone Interviews. He is the author of Without Prejudice, and his life story is now being adapted into a film starring David Arquette and David Mazuz.

He explains:
◼ How being cut off by his parents at 19 led to poverty, and what kept him from spiraling into addiction or hopelessness
◼ Why he fought the Ontario Lottery Corporation after a man who owed $35,000 in child support won a $14 million jackpot and sent it overseas to avoid paying
◼ Why he believes family court and the correctional system are fundamentally broken, and why almost no other judges will say so publicly
◼ What happened when he tried to modernize his own courtroom, and why his Chief Justice personally ordered him to stop
◼ Why he thinks judges are systematically discouraged from speaking out, even after retirement
◼ His take on the Jordan decision, court scheduling failures, and why drug treatment courts are underused in Canada

📍 WITHOUT PREJUDICE:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Without-Prejudice-Life-Gay-Judge/dp/1770418784
Indigo: https://www.indigo.ca/products/without-prejudice-my-life-as-a-gay-judge

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Cassandra Harvey is a survivor of human trafficking turned advocate and aspiring criminal defence lawyer. Raised by a mother who struggled with addiction from a young age, she entered the foster care system as a child and aged out of it as a teenager. She was trafficked by three different men over the following years before finally getting out with the help of a lawyer, a detective, and a support group. She now shares her story publicly and advocates for a side of the conversation that rarely gets airtime: addressing why men become traffickers in the first place.

She explains:
◼ How she grew up caring for a mother struggling with addiction and entered the foster care system as a child
◼ How grooming can begin early, and why it can come from someone barely older than the person being targeted
◼ Why she didn't recognize what was happening to her as trafficking until years after it started
◼ What a trauma bond is and why it can keep someone tied to the person harming them
◼ Why she believes preventing trafficking requires addressing the exploitation that often shapes the men who become traffickers
◼ What finally got her out, and why she's now applying to law school to become a criminal defense lawyer

If you or someone you know may be experiencing exploitation or trafficking, the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline is available at 1-833-900-1010.

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Orlando Da Silva is a lawyer of over 30 years, former president of the Ontario Bar Association, and one of the first people in the Canadian legal profession to publicly disclose his struggle with treatment-resistant depression and generalized anxiety. When he became OBA president in 2014, he spent two years working up the courage to go public, eventually sharing his story in a Law Times interview that was picked up by the Toronto Star. He is the author of Thank God I Failed, a memoir about depression, meaning, and what it took to build a life worth living after a childhood that gave him every reason not to.

He explains:
◼ What it was like growing up in a home where violence was regular and unpredictable and why he still struggles to call it abuse
◼ How a grade eight teacher crossing out "basic" and writing "gifted" on his high school application changed the trajectory of his life
◼ Why he spent 20 years hiding his depression from colleagues, certain that disclosure would end his career
◼ Why he abandoned the pursuit of success and chose to pursue meaning instead



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GET THE BOOK - THANK GOD I FAILED
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Thank-God-Failed-Lawyers-Suicide/dp/1067369988
Indigo/Chapters: https://www.indigo.ca/products/thank-god-i-failed-a-lawyers-suicide-attempt-and-the-case-against-trying
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thank-god-i-failed-orlando-da-silva/1150201737

SARAH TURNEY grew up in London, Ontario oscillating between working poor and just poor, using a food bank, navigating real instability at home, and never once imagining she would become a lawyer.

Sarah Turney is a partner at Fasken, one of Canada's largest law firms, where she heads up the real estate and property litigation practice, a niche she built from the ground up. In 2024, she argued and won a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of a Toronto family whose backyard the City of Toronto claimed was public parkland, a case that had been denied, appealed, and lost twice before she took it all the way to the country's highest court.

She explains:
◼ What it was like growing up with parents who struggled with addiction and how that instability became the fuel that drove her forward
◼ Why she was so afraid of being rejected from law school that she did a master's degree first just to avoid applying
◼ How she worked full-time at a community center while attending law school full-time, up at 5AM, working until 10PM, for three years straight
◼ What the Supreme Court case was actually about, a Toronto family whose backyard sat on city parkland since 1971, and what a 5-4 decision really means for advocacy
◼ Why coming from nothing gave her skills that no law firm could teach, and what she'd say to young women afraid to apply to law school
◼ Why she still sometimes passes someone on the street and wonders: could that have been me?

FOLLOW JORDANA
INSTAGRAM: jordanagoldlist
WEBSITE: www.jhgcriminallaw.com

DR. ROBYNE HANLEY-DAFOE is an educational behaviorist, bestselling author of I Hope So, and international speaker who teaches resilience and well-being.

She shares her journey from struggling with undiagnosed ADHD as a child to dropping out of high school, being institutionalized at 16, and surviving a near-death car accident—and how her mother's question "how do you want to feel?" instead of "what are your goals?" changed everything.

She explains:
◼ How undiagnosed ADHD in young girls can lead to rejection sensitivity, self-harm, and addiction
◼ The difference between hope and optimism—and why hope is what makes resilience possible
◼ Why high performers often succeed despite their habits, not because of them
◼ What "making yourself savable" means
◼ The cost of hopelessness in society today

Christophe Lewis was 20 years old when he made a decision that cost him the next decade of his life. Convicted of second-degree murder in 2011, he was handed a life sentence with a 12-year parole ineligibility period and sent to Millhaven Institution.

In November 2012, he refused a strip search being conducted by a female guard — illegal under CSC protocol. Thirty guards responded. What followed was caught on CCTV. Then CSC said the footage was lost.

Years of grievances were dismissed at every level. When his case finally reached the national level, CSC upheld the complaint for excessive force — and in the same breath said his behaviour contributed to the assault. He fought for nearly a decade to get the footage, get charges laid, and get to trial. One guard was convicted of assault with a weapon. The sentence: 12 months probation and 60 hours community service.

Lewis was released on parole in November 2021 and still technically serves a life sentence. He's also the founder of Freedom Is A Must Foundation, a youth mentor working across Canada, a real estate investor, and a Concordia University student.

A broken crayon can still colour.

Audrey Hyams Romoff's mother was one of the youngest children to survive the Auschwitz concentration camp, liberated at just 8 years old — and that childhood trauma shaped four generations of women in ways Audrey never fully understood until decades later.

Audrey Hyams Romoff is the founder of Overcat PR and author of The Ripple Eclipse, a memoir tracing four generations of women in her family and the inherited trauma that runs through all of them. She recently traveled to Auschwitz with PBS NewsHour for the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
She explains:

- How profound childhood trauma can physically alter your DNA — and be passed to your children and grandchildren (epigenetics)
- Why her mother's Holocaust survival made Audrey's most ordinary life decisions feel like abandonment to her
- What Audrey found when she opened boxes of her parents' belongings years after their deaths — and the 127-page unedited interview transcript that changed how she understood her mother
- Why she doesn't believe in closure — and why "livable" might be the most honest goal anyone can have after profound loss
- How compartmentalization can be both a survival tool and a trap that prevents healing

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📍 FOLLOW AUDREY:
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Website: https://www.instagram.com/audreyhyamsromoff/

📍 THE RIPPLE ECLIPSE:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Ripple-Eclipse-Turning-Inherited-Trauma/dp/1998206491
Indigo: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-ripple-eclipse-turning-the-tide-of-inherited-trauma/61b10bc2-2995-3b17-b869-cecd03246f95.html
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ripple-eclipse-audrey-hyams-romoff/1148428319