Excerpts used by permission of the author and by the Osgoode Society

87. Joan Cohen of the Winnipeg Free Press summed up the prevailing view opinion: ‘Whatever its talents, greatness is not a word that either lawyers or the public attach to the Laskin court as a court. But there is a wide view that it does attach to Laskin himself, and his writings for the court.’ P - 536 The Final Years

86. When Laskin had not been in Court since December and had to be hospitalized again in February with pneumonia, it was clear that the end could not be far off. Brian Dickson quietly put in motion some arrangements he had made twice before when Laskin was very ill. Knowing that the Order of Canada does not make posthumous appointments, Dickson ensured that Laskin would be named secretly to the Order – as it turned out, less than two weeks before his death.  P 534  - 535 The Final Years

85. His irascibility with counsel became such that sometimes (SCC Justice) Brian Dickson  had to intervene by saying ‘the rest of us would like to hear what you have to say, counsel.’ The situation was exacerbated by Laskin’s refusal to discuss his health with his colleagues.      P 534 – The Final Years

84. Some incidents in the fall of 1983 revealed a chief justice in the throes of a personality change induced by illness and possibly medication. P 533 – The Final Years

83. Thomas Berger, unsurprisingly, was left with a jaundiced view of Bora Laskin after this conflict.   While acknowledging Laskin’s ‘formidable contribution to Canadian law,’ he accused the chief justice of ‘display[ing] a devotion to rank, status and hierarchy.  Inside the skin of a civil libertarian was an authoritarian struggling to get out.’   P -  526 - 527  The Berger Affair

82. Berger realized that he could not carry on as a judge. He made the decision that fall to resign the following summer, and wrote his letter of  of resignation...Given his popularity in British Columbia, it was not long before he had resumed a thriving professional life. Within days of his resignation he accepted an appointment as a commissioner to inquire into the workings of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, renewing his ties with the Arctic land and people he had grown to love during the Mackenzie Valley inquiry.  P -  522  The Berger Affair

81. Someone rose after Laskin’s jeremiad and said it was too bad Berger was not there to defend himself.  ‘This was greeted with substantial, perhaps significant, and certainly deserved applause.’   P -  522  The Berger Affair

80. Laskin had been asked to address the annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in Toronto on 2 September (1982)...Before a thousand lawyers and judges Laskin used the platform as a bully pulpit to lash out  at Berger and those who had criticized the judicial Council’s ruling...For Laskin, who had often said he lost half his freedom of speech when he became a judge and the other half when he became a chief justice, the position was stark and simple. A judge who feels so strongly on political issues that he must speak out ‘is best advised to resign from the bench.’  P -  522  The Berger Affair

79.  According to the council, while Berger’s ‘actions were indiscreet, they constitute no basis for a recommendation that he be removed from office.’ ...the council’s  resolution gave only  a one-line explanation of its views by way of advice to judges: ‘members of the Judiciary should avoid taking part in controversial political discussions except only in respect of matters that directly affect the operation of the courts.’  P - 519  The Berger Affair

78. Trudeau expressed frustration with Berger’s intervention, saying ‘I just regard this as the judiciary getting mixed into politics and I hope the judges will do something about it.’ And they did. On 8 March the council resolved to appoint a committee of investigation to inquire, in private, into Justice Addy’s complaint...The Chief Justices of British Columbia, Nathan Nemetz and Allan McEachern, both supported Berger and dissented from the council’s decision... McEachern became Berger’s de facto advocate before the inquiry committee.   P -  518  The Berger Affair

77. ...it was the publication by the Globe and Mail of a speech Berger gave at the University of Guelph on the seventeenth  (September, 1981) that  launched the controversy in earnest.  He lamented the omission of the Quebec veto and the repudiation of native rights, and urged the restoration of both.  Justice G.A. Addy of the Federal Court wrote immediately to Bora Laskin in his capacity as chair of the Canadian Judicial Council to lay a formal complaint against Thomas Berger.  Berger, he alleged, had ‘not the faintest idea of the position and role of a judge in the British parliamentary system to-day.’   P - 517 – 518  The Berger Affair

76. Justice Thomas Berger had been following the constitutional saga closely.  Given his experience as head of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in 1974-75, he was particularly concerned that the rights of the native peoples be recognized in any new constitutional arrangements. P - 517  The Berger Affair

75. As a twenty-nine-year-old MP, (Thomas) Berger had spoken out in Parliament about the RCMP presence on university campuses...As a labour arbitrator Berger had great admiration for Laskin’s arbitral decisions and relied on them regularly.  As a young lawyer, he had been involved principally with union-side labour law, criminal defence work, and the nascent field of native rights.  He served as junior counsel to Frank Scott in a 1963 Supreme Court of Canada case where a union challenged B.C. legislation prohibiting the payment of union dues to political parties.  They lost the case four to three but became fast friends. Like Scott, Berger admired Ivan Rand, calling him ‘the greatest judge in Canadian history.’  He was also a counsel before the Supreme Court...As a civil libertarian, defender of human rights, and labour advocate, Berger seemed cut from the Laskin mould. Yet by the time the ‘Berger Affair’ ended Laskin had succeeded in hounding Berger off the bench.    P 516 - 517  The Berger Affair

74. Nathan Nemetz, promoted to Chief Justice of British Columbia in January, had planned a lavish round of ceremonies to mark the opening of Arthur Erickson’s stunning ziggurat in glass, included in a special  convocation at UBC were Lord Denning, Laskin and former Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret would receive honorary degrees. Unfortunately, the wild card of Laskin’s ill health would force Nemetz to alter his plans at the last minute. On 22 August Laskin was admitted to St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver for an emergency hernia operation. Nine days later he was discovered to have a strangulated bowel and required surgery again...and had to remain in hospital for three months.  P – 447 - 448  The Laskin Court

73. However unhappy Bora Laskin was with the divisions in the Court in the Patriation Reference, he was probably not too dissatisfied with the final political outcome...He would not have embraced  the Charter as a tool for enlightened judges to show benighted politicians how to run the country; such thinking was totally foreign to him. It is hard to imagine him being too upset even about the notwithstanding clause, the bête noire of so many equality-seeking groups. Laskin’s modernist thought had always stressed flexibility, the need to respond to new and unforeseen circumstances.  The possibility  P 514 – 515   Patriation

72. March 1979...Laskin was admitted to hospital in Toronto with alarming symptoms: he had taken on eighteen pounds of fluid in a week and seemed to be swelling uncontrollably.  Tests revealed Laskin to be suffering from Addison’s Disease...in which the adrenal glands are destroyed by misguided antibodies.  These glands  produce cortisol and aldosterone, two hormones which regulate water and salt absorption...Laskin’s fluid build-up may have been the result of an initial overdose of medication to counteract the dehydration of Addison’s.   P – 447    The Laskin Court

71. (Laskin) was admitted to the Toronto Western Hospital suffering from exhaustion and angina. A heart ‘disturbance’ resulted in by-pass surgery on 1 June (1977), and Laskin  remained in hospital until he 8^th of July.  A number of complications delayed his recovery, including a serious post-operative infection. ‘Everything that could have gone wrong seems to have gone wrong,’ he reported... P – 445 – 446    The Laskin Court

70.  ...after Laskin became Chief Justice...he became extraordinarily sensitive to any perceived slights on himself or his office. Laskin took his symbolic role highly seriously, perhaps too seriously, and took any criticism of the Court or its administration personally.  He did not have the thick skin of the seasoned manager...A former associate recalls meeting Laskin at two separate legal functions in Toronto.  Both times the individual tried to explore with Laskin an apparent inconsistency between something he had said as a law professor and one of his recent decisions.  Even allowing for the somewhat importunate nature of such a question, many people in Laskin’s position would have waved off the inquiry in a humorous fashion, or invoked judicial ethics to justify avoid a reply. In both instances Laskin became visibly roiled, turned on his heel, and stalked away without a word. P – 437 – 438    The Laskin Court

69. The Vancouver Sun had declined to print an advertisement from a gay rights group, a refusal found to be discriminatory by a board of enquiry under the B.C. Human Rights Act but not by the B.C. Court of Appeal.  Laskin defined the issue in the opening words of his dissent  not as a human rights matter but ‘involving a recurring question in administrative law, namely, the reviewability on questions allegedly of law or of jurisdiction, of the decision of a statutory tribunal.’...What he found objectionable in the decision of Branca J.A. in the B.C. Court of Appeal   was ‘a direct substitution of the learned judge’s opinion for that of the board.’  For Laskin that was the unforgivable sin.   P- 494 -  495 Architect of Public Law.

68. When the (SCC) decision was released in March 1975 the majority decision came in for no little criticism, mainly for acquiescing in the overturning of the jury verdict...Parliament soon amended the Criminal Code to remove the power of courts of appeal to substitute convictions for jury acquittals.  Morgentaler was tried on two subsequent occasions but acquitted both times by juries, and the new Parti Québécois government announced late in 1976 that it would cease  to enforce the federal abortion law.    P – 422  Chief Justice

67. The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that there was no evidence to go to the jury, and substituted a conviction. Its right to do so, as well as the correctness of its decision on the merits, was challenged by Morgentaler. P – 419  Chief Justice

66. Dr. Henry Morgentaler, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor, had admittedly performed six to seven thousand abortions in his free-standing Montreal clinic without the authorization of a hospital therapeutic abortion committee. Performing an abortion remained a criminal offence...P – 419  Chief Justice

65. Otto Lang had the impression that Trudeau was expecting him to recommend Martland’s promotion, and would have accepted it.  When Lang recommended Laskin instead, Trudeau was first intrigued, then delighted. P – 408  Chief Justice

64. According to firm but not invariable tradition, Martland should have succeeded Fauteux as the senior judge.  The last time the convention was not respected occurred in 1924... Only two candidates appeared to be seriously in the running, Ronald Martland and Bora Laskin, but Ratushny found a deep polarization of opinion in his rapid sounding of professional opinion.  Martland had three things going for him: convention, strong support from western Canada, and a conservative view of the common law...P – 408  Chief Justice

62. Chief Justice Fauteux, at seventy three, was expected to remain in office for another two years, and had given no intimation of an early departure.  Suddenly, on  19 December (1973) he announced he would retire before Christmas...Pierre Trudeau, occupied with impending fatherhood, threw the matter into the lap of the Minister of Justice, Otto Lang.  Lang had created a new position of adviser on judicial appointments that spring, and named his former executive assistant Ed Ratushny to it.  P – 407  Chief Justice

61. Laskin’s dissent... its psychological impact was enormous and it contributed   to a growing campaign to change matrimonial property laws. The fact that even one judge on the Supreme court of Canada could state that the labour of wives should not be taken for granted was seen as a huge step forward. By the early 1980s all provincial legislatures had taken the step Laskin had hinted they should take. They declared marriage to be a partnership with deemed equal contributions by both spouses, regardless of their form, and a presumed equal division, on marriage termination, of the principal matrimonial assets or their increase in value over the course of the marriage.  P –  400 - 401 Early Promise

60. When the couple quarrelled over whether to sell their farms and start over in a different business, Alex Murdoch assaulted his wife, breaking her jaw in three places.   He took her to the hospital, but on her return she found the door locked and her credit cut off at local stores. Irene worked as a cleaning woman to supplement the $200  monthly support ...(SCC Justice) Martland earned the undying  enmity of the women’s movement by citing and agreeing with the trial judge’s finding that Irene Murdoch’s contribution was just ‘what the average farm wife did’ and not such as to entitle her to a share in any of the farms. Laskin, alone in dissent, disagreed with this characterization but went further: even if no agreement existed, relief might be provided by way of a constructive trust imposed to remedy the unjust enrichment the husband would otherwise enjoy.  This was legally controversial, as unjust enrichment was not a widely invoked head of liability at the time...In his view, Irene Murdoch was entitled to a share of the farm assets, the exact amount to be quantified after a reference back to the trial judge. The decision illustrates both Laskin’s creativity and his sense of restraint.  By employing an existing doctrine in a new context   to redress a perceived injustice, Laskin innovated within parameters well understood in the common law.   P –  399 - 400 Early Promise

59. In Murdoch v. Murdoch, the Supreme Court had to decide on the property rights of an Alberta ranching couple who had always taken title to their farms in the husband’s name. The doctrine of ‘separate property’ then in force declared such assets to belong to the named owner unless the other spouse could prove a contribution to their acquisition and maintenance.  Further, the spouse had to show that any share in the asset was the result of an explicit or implicit agreement.    P –  399 Early Promise

58. Technically, the Nisga’a lost four to three...With six Supreme Court judges recognizing the doctrine of common law aboriginal title, the federal government had to take notice...reversed the long-standing policy and declared the willingness of the government to settle native land claims in all non-treaty areas of Canada. Nearly three decades later the Nisga’a Treaty came into force, and many new treaties have also been signed in other parts of Canada. It is almost impossible to overstate the significance of Calder on the evolving status of the First Nations in Canada. P –  395 Early Promise

57. Both (SCC Justices) Judson and Hall expressed the essence ‘Indian title’ with refreshing simplicity. ‘[W]hen the settlers came,’ said Judson, ‘the Indians were there, organized in societies and occupying the land as their forefathers had done for centuries.  This is what Indian title means.’ Hall said simply that long possession was prima facie proof of ownership at common law.  The Nisga’a had been in possession since time immemorial, according to the anthropological evidence, and were ‘a distinctive cultural entity with concepts of ownership indigenous to their culture and capable of articulation under the common law.’ P -  394 Early Promise

56. Canadian courts had never ruled definitively on the status of aboriginal claims to land in areas unaffected by treaty where  the occupants could demonstrate continuous possession back to pre-European times. According to the B.C. Court of Appeal aboriginal peoples had only a moral entitlement to ‘their’ land.  P -  395 Early Promise

55.  ...Calder v. Attorney General of British Columbia, the keystone of Canadian case law on aboriginal title  and one of the Court’s most important  decisions of the twentieth century. One of the two principal sets of reasons was written by Laskin’s friend Emmett Hall, and represented his swan song at the Court. The Nisga’a  people asserted title to a large part of northwestern British Columbia which they had never surrendered by treaty.  In 1969 they sought a declaration against the Crown in right of British Columbia clarifying their land rights, but the attorney general refused them permission to bring their action, as then required under B.C.  law. Undeterred, Vancouver lawyer Thomas Berger argued their claim at both the trial and appeal level...In Calder, the B.C. Court of Appeal denied the existence of any doctrine of aboriginal title, and said even if it existed, pre-Confederation laws of the colony of British Columbia had extinguished it in the case of the Nisga’a. Berger argued the case before the Supreme Court for an entire week in November-December 1971. ..P – 393 – 394 Early Promise

54. When he trained his critical attention on lower court judges he could be merciless, contrary to existing traditions of judicial courtesy...The mini-lectures in some of his decisions were sometimes interpreted as grandstanding...in later years, when some of Laskin’s own decisions were questioned, he showed himself incapable of accepting the kind of criticism he had often inflicted on others. P – 392 – 393 Early Promise

53. Laskin early on became a kind of godfather to all the clerks, and was the only judge who deigned to visit them in their own quarters. Louise Arbour, later a justice on the Court, clerked for Justice Pigeon in 1971-2 and still recalls a thrill running through the room when Laskin made one of his unannounced visits.  P – 377   On to Ottawa

52. Within weeks of his arrival Laskin signalled subtle - and perhaps not so subtle – ways that he would not conform automatically to the culture of the Court.  He rarely followed the traditional routine of going to the Rideau Club for lunch... club had only just abandoned its exclusion of Jews from membership, thanks to the efforts of Emmett Hall and others, and women would not be admitted as members until 1974.   P – 375   On to Ottawa

51. Where Laskin’s initial appointment to the Court of Appeal had been seen as startling – an academic! A non-partisan! A Jew! – Trudeau’s elevation of Laskin to the Supreme Court was seen as bold and innovative...Trudeau himself had been an outsider to the political process five years earlier, and seemed to prove that someone unconnected to the political establishment might provide inspired leadership in a time of rapid change...The appointment of a Jew to Canada’s highest court possessed a symbolism similar to Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court three years before. It broke the French-English Catholic-Protestant stranglehold on the Court, and provided dramatic recognition of the contributions of Canadians not belonging to the two European ‘founding nations.’     P – 365 - 66   On to Ottawa

50. It was not until shortly after Laskin’s death that the Supreme Court of Canada made another definitive ruling on obscenity.  In Town Cinema Theatres v. The Queen, the Court for the most part adopted Laskin’s dissent in Cameron as authoritative.  P - 360  Ontario Court of Appeal

49. Cameron’s counsel applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court but it appears Laskin unwittingly let them down. He had not taken care to frame his dissent around a point of law   P - 359  Ontario Court of Appeal

48. It was left to Bora Laskin to mention the one word not uttered by any of the other judges: love. Where the other judges saw only ‘genitalia’ and licentious exploitation of a sexual theme, Laskin observed that ‘love as a theme, whether in literature or in art, and in all of its manifestations, is hardly a novelty.’  P – 358  Ontario Court of Appeal

47. The final decision was not a surprise: four of Laskin’s colleagues agreed with the decision of Magistrate Hayes. Writing for the majority, Judge Aylesworth was ‘left in no doubt as to their [i.e., the works] being obscene. They lie not in any gray area of doubt; they are of base purpose and their obscenity is flagrant.’  P – 358  Ontario Court of Appeal

46. On 25 November 1965 Toronto art gallery owner Dorothy Cameron was convicted  before Magistrate F.C. Hayes of exposing to public view seven obscene pictures in an exhibition entitled ‘EROS 65’ and fined fifty dollars on each count.  Five were by Robert Markle, a Mohawk artist whose work hung in the National Gallery of Canada...One of the impugned works  showed a single nude female ‘in an attitude of sexual invitation’,   P – 356  Ontario Court of Appeal

45. Laskin’s reputation as a dissenting judge started in the Court of Appeal, and in fact he disagreed with his colleagues in 17 per cent of the reported decisions in which he took part during his four and a half years there. Such a rate was probably high for an appellate judge at the time...Both of his most celebrated dissents, in R. v. Cameron and R. v. Horsburgh, centred on sexuality when social and legal attitudes were in a rapid state of flux.  P – 350  Ontario Court of Appeal

44. Laskin got little chance at the Court of Appeal to display his expertise in constitutional law, but when such points came up his colleagues were happy to let him write. In fact, he wrote for a unanimous panel on each of the three occasions when constitutional law issues were raised... Papp v. Papp, in which Laskin upheld the constitutional validly of the corollary relief provisions of the federal Divorce Act, 1968, has become a cornerstone of the administration of family law in Canada.  P – 347  Ontario Court of Appeal

43. ...the most marked difference between Laskin and his colleagues lay in the field of criminal law.  Here, Laskin was  somewhat vulnerable because  this was one of the few areas he had not studied in depth...His colleagues saw themselves as  guardians of law and order and espoused what came to be called ‘crime control’ approach to the criminal law, as opposed to Laskin’s ‘due process’ model.  P – 340  Ontario Court of Appeal

42. One minor but significant irritant for Laskin was the judges’ practice of retiring to the University Club in the late afternoon for a rubber of bridge.  The club, unconnected to the the University of Toronto in spite of its name, did not admit Jews as members although they could be signed in as guests.   P – 340  Ontario Court of Appeal

41. As a full-time academic who had virtually never appeared in court or even practiced as a solicitor, Laskin suffered from an immediate legitimacy problem.   P – 339 Ontario Court of Appeal

40. Laskin’s appointment to the Ontario Court of Appeal in September 1965 and his elevation to the Supreme Court of Canada in March 1970 were the product of a very particular set of events at a specific historical moment: the Pearson-Trudeau years of the late 1960s.  Trudeau’s vision... permeated the important legislative initiatives of the day: the Divorce Act, 1968, Criminal Code reform, the Official Languages Act, and the rationalization of the welfare state (including state-funded health care and the spread of legal aid) that followed the adoption of the Canada Assistance Plan in 1966. Citizens had more leeway to make decisions in intimate matters such as sexual activity, birth control, abortion, and divorce.  P- 316  The Accidental Judge

39. Just as Laskin deplored the anaemic Bill of Rights proposed by Diefenbaker, so he disapproved of the amending formula for the Canadian Constitution put forward by Diefenbaker’s minister of Justice, Davie Fulton, on 1 December 1961. – 214  Federalism

38. December 1958 provided Laskin with a platform to attack the first draft of the Bill of Rights presented that fall to Parliament...This may well have been the first meeting between Laskin and Trudeau, who would soon find they shared a common constitutional vision. P – 211  Federalism

37. By the late 1950s Laskin’s position as the dean of Canadian constitutional law was unassailable. P – 213  Federalism

36. The Crowe case was an enormous morale-booster for the entire Canadian professoriate. A chastened administration at United College became the first in the country to approve an agreement dealing with professorial salaries, benefits, conditions of employment, tenure, and academic freedom in 1959.   P -  282 - 283  Academic Freedom

35. (United College) Board member Gordon Churchill, minister of trade and commerce in the Diefenbaker government, brokered a settlement obliging the board to withdraw the letters of dismissal and affirm Crowe’s position in the college.  P -  281  Academic Freedom

34. The Fowke-Laskin (arbitration) report marked a key turning point not only in the history of academic freedom in  Canada, but also in the self-image of Canadian academics.    P – 281 - 282  Academic Freedom

33. The Crowe case was such a perfect vehicle for Bora Laskin, it was almost as if the hand of Yahweh had intervened...Finally he had the seniority and the moral authority to articulate a ringing defence of the value or free inquiry and speech in the university context, and the ideal platform from which to proclaim his message.  P – 276  Academic Freedom

32. (United College, Winnipeg) history professor Harry Crowe...had written to Professor William Packer of the German department inquiring about the fledgling United College Association  (UCA). Packer, Crowe, and other colleagues had formed the association a few years earlier to press the college administration for better wages and faculty representation on the board of regents. In the letter Crowe criticized the board, the principal, other faculty members, and religion in general. He thought it galling that the board had tried to pressure faculty into canvassing for money for the college...When dismissed... Crowe resolved to fight. The contest would...entrench Bora Laskin’s reputation as a fearless champion of academic values...   P – 272 -273 Academic Freedom

31. The (Ontario) court of appeal decision in Noble was overturned...Race and religious-based zoning was over, not just in Ontario but across Canada, and with retrospective effect since such covenants have never been legally effective to begin with. P – 258 Human Rights

30. It was thus before a new ‘supreme’ Supreme Court of Canada that the appeal was heard in June of 1950...With recent changes in  personnel, the Court was now  stronger intellectually  than it had ever been, and more liberally inclined.   P – 256 Human Rights

29. Ironically, these earnest bourgeois Jewish activists were being monitored by the RCMP. In the post-war years the RCMP remained suspicious of Jews for their perceived allegiance to communism...P – 253 - 254 Human Rights

28. By 1944 Laskin was deeply involved in a JRPC-sponsored legal challenge to the validity of racially and religiously exclusive restrictive covenants.   By allowing the creation of white Anglo Saxon residential enclaves these covenants symbolized the exclusion experienced by Jews in many areas of life. Thus when the Workers’ Educational Association purchased a piece of land subject to a covenant prohibiting  it from being ‘sold to Jews or persons of objectionable nationality’  the stage was set for a head-on challenge to this much resented legal device.  P – 249 Human Rights

27. The Joint Public Relations Committee (JPRC) was established in 1938 by the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith to fight anti-Semitism in all its forms. P – 248  Human Rights

26. Laskin’s arbitral experience not only gave him a certain legitimacy within the legal profession, but also served as a kind of judicial apprenticeship. He acquired extensive experience in fact-finding and assessing credibility, in running hearings...Without this crucial exposure, it is unlikely that Laskin’s judicial career would have materialized.  P – 245  Arbitrator

25. Labour arbitration gave Bora Laskin ample scope to implement his vision of legal modernism, to carry out the kind of sensitive balancing of interests advocated by the scholars of the 1930s.  While publicly identified with the cause of labour, Laskin did not discount the interests of the employer in making a legitimate profit and in organizing production. He would quickly achieve an enviable reputation for impartiality in a highly adversarial domain.  P – 226  Arbitrator

24. Bora Laskin was a very urban person, who never displayed any particular interest in or understanding of Canada beyond its cities... In music his tastes ran to jazz, in religion he was on the most liberal wing of Reform Judaism. The city represented freedom, individuality, privacy and prosperity, and progress, while rural small town Canada stood for a benighted localism better relegated to the past...For Laskin, only the federal government had the resources, the vision, the power to implement a modernist agenda for Canada, to get beyond local prejudices... P – 217 -218  Federalism

23. Laskin’s judicial approach was foreshadowed in his constitutional law casebook, first published in 1951.  The book was a significant achievement in its day, and solidified its author’s reputation as an expert in the field. It gathered extracts of all the leading cases on the interpretation of the British North America Act, organized them by subject... P – 204 Federalism

22. With few exceptions, his constitutional law scholarship was narrowly focused on this central dynamic of Canadian federalism: the division of powers outlined in sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, 1867.   P – 195 Federalism

21. It is less clear whether Laskin ever breached his duty of loyalty while a member of the staff at Osgoode. P – 167 Osgoode

20. ...his contribution to the domain of labour law, as opposed to labour law scholarship, was profound. It consisted principally of legitimating the entire field, helping to articulate it as an object of state policy, professional interest, and public concern. In teaching labour law Laskin taught generations of students, future lawyers, and policy makers to think critically about the balancing of interests involved.  P – 157 Osgoode

19. Knowledge of the Holocaust undermined the fortress of Canadian anti-Semitism, seemingly so impregnable in the 1930s. In his 1976 interview Laskin and his interviewer generally steered clear of issues related to Judaism, but Laskin volunteered that ‘there were a couple of interesting features’ about his being hired at Osgoode. ‘First, they never had a person of the Jewish faith on the faculty of Osgoode Hall. And that in itself was probably a revolution.’    P - 146  Professor

18. Bora Laskin was appointed to teach labour law, constitutional law, real property and the history of English Law at Osgoode Law School.  P -  150 Osgoodee

17. Laskin was one of a small circle of legal advisers whom labour leaders trusted...in 1943 became general counsel for the UAW     P - 138 Professor

16.  Laskin would never practice law again (aside from some opinion work) after his brief stint in the early 1940s. P - 148  Professor

15. It took the enhanced bargaining power of labour during the war years to bring forth a new paradigm of industrial relations in Canada.  This new system centred on certified trade unions, compulsory recognitions by employers and mandatory collective bargaining.  P – 134-35 Professor

14. ...one might ask why he did not volunteer for the armed forces... his ability to advance his career during the war gave him an enormous advantage in post-war years. Some in the legal profession held it against him for a very long time.  P – 133-34 Professor

13. In a sense Laskin owed (obtaining) his position (Law professor) at the University of Toronto to the war, and its impact was omnipresent during his first five-year stint there.  P - 130  Professor

12.  (After Harvard) Laskin sought out positions with Toronto firms but to no avail...(Like) other Jewish Lawyers of the day, he encountered a wall of prejudice.  P - 108 Waiting

11. (To) Laskin...legal modernism...was a dynamic  tool of social organization and social engineering...(according to  legal modernism) the legislature was the primary body through which social consensus was achieved and implemented, and the role of the courts was to assist in the process of implementation  P 97 - 98 Harvard

10. Laskin found the late nineteenth-century approach to law unsatisfactory... Law was said to exist in a completely autonomous and apolitical realm of artificial reason but in fact expressed clear political values: those of Victorian liberalism. As R.C.B. Risk has said, ‘these ways of thinking...continued to be virtually the only way of thinking from the late nineteenth century to the late 1920s'.  P  97 - 98 Harvard

9. For a young Canadian Jewish lawyer with academic aspirations, (Felix) Frankfurter was an awe-inspiring role model, and the chance to study with him a magnificent boon. Laskin’s career as an academic, government advisor, activist, public intellectual, and finally judge, paralleled Frankfurter’s in striking fashion.   P  - 87  Harvard

8. Laskin was in awe of the templelike edifice inhabited by the Harvard Law School. Langdell Hall’s severe classical façade of fifteen Ionic columns rivalled the U.S. Supreme Court itself for sheer majesty...a professorial complement larger than the total number of law professors in Canada at the time.  P – 80  Harvard

7. Laskin had virtually no savings, and probably deferred his call to the bar in 1937 because it cost $161. Tuition fees alone would be $400, but fortunately Harvard was able to offer Laskin a scholarship in that amount.  P  - 81  Harvard

6. Osgoode Hall Law School itself imposed no quotas and did not discriminate overtly against Jews in its admission process, but the concurrent system of articling and lectures obliged all students to find a principal in Toronto willing to supervise them for three years. Aspirant lawyers from outside Toronto without contacts in the capital had always found this a problem, but for those whose gender or race  put them outside the mainstream the barrier was well-nigh insuperable. P – 59 Articling

5. He had departed planning to become a lawyer...P – 79 Articling

4. Fortunately at the Lakehead  one could be a Jew and still participate fully in the larger community. No one stopped Laskin from exercising leadership in high school activities or on the local sports scene. His teachers urged him to go to university. P- 37 The Lakehead

3. During his senior years at high school he exerted himself as never before, juggling many commitments and excelling in all of them – setting the pattern for the rest of his life. P- 33 The Lakehead

2. In addition to Laskin’s reshaping of public law, his most significant contribution resided in his general approach to decision making.  Laskin became a judge at a time when the allure of the English heritage had faded in Canadian legal culture generally, but the judiciary itself seemed unwilling or unable to acknowledge this transition. Someone had to challenge this mindset, and Laskin eagerly took up the role. In doing so, however, he did not subscribe to any narrowly Nationalist vision... rather he urged a serious  consideration of American precedents in specific fields where economic or social similarities seemed compelling and where differing  constitutional frameworks did not present an impediment to Canadian borrowing. He continued to learn from English law, to cite Australasian precedents, and on occasion to suggest the utility of Quebec civil law approaches in a common law context.    P 504 -Epilogue

BORA LASKIN BRINGING LAW TO LIFE By Philip Girard University of Toronto Press Published for the Osgoode  Society for Canadian Legal History 646 Pages

Copyright by Philip Girard. Excerpts used by permission of the author and by the Osgoode Society.

87. Joan Cohen of the Winnipeg Free Press summed up the prevailing