Nawel Izard_ the Lawyer behind the 'In Session' radio show

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Nawel Izard is the host of a popular radio program on Cortes Community Radio and the head of the Polaris Law Collective, whose head office is in Campbell River. She was born in Algeria, but lived almost her entire life in Canada. In this morning's interview Nawel describes her motivations and something of her legal practice.   Cortes Currents:  What motivates you, especially towards law? Nawel Izard: "A deep curiosity to ask questions, but more importantly I want to help people and if knowing where to find things is a way to help people, why not? Service plays into it as well in that I've always hoped that I would end up a lawyer." "It's been my focus ever since that citizenship ceremony moment where I see these lawyers participating in something that felt so grand. Making you go from being an immigrant with no status - to now you are Canadian with the pride and a sense of relief in knowing that you are now transitioned. The change was legal and if you have to be a part of that legal bracket, you were a part of this magical institution that made these types of things happen. I think that's where the hook came in." Cortes Currents: Tell us about the day you decided to be a lawyer. Nawel Izard: "I was five years old at my citizenship ceremony. My parents were put through all of the tests, paperwork, fingerprinting and whatnot. I remember standing on a chair and not really singing. I would really categorize it more as a toddler yelling the Canadian anthem, and was just so proud!" "Watching the team of lawyers do this paperwork, it was like live streaming wizardry to take you from being almost 'non status.' You've left your country and you're not really one of us yet and this ceremony makes you Canadian. I just remember thinking and looking at that female lawyer and saying, she's free. I want to be her. I want that." "As a teenager, I had a very short stray from my lifelong objective of becoming a lawyer. I thought pathology would be really cool and that if I was an autopsy doctor I could always figure out what happened to people. The math component shocked me right back to law. I said, "Nope, I will help people as a lawyer, keep your chemistry for yourselves, and then I carried on." Cortes Currents: How Algerian are you? You don't have an accent.  Nawel Izard: "You could never tell from my voice that I'm a polyglot and English is actually my fourth language. I also speak Algerian, I speak Arabic (and French), but I studied in Canada and I did all my post-secondary education in English." "I'm very close with my family actually, and was just at a cousin's wedding in the summer. They all joke that it's like I never left the village because I'm really down to earth and I love to cook from scratch."