Roundup: The looming retirement of the Chief Justice

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Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin announced yesterday that she would be retiring on December 15th, a few months in advance of her mandatory retirement date, in order to give the government enough time to find a suitable replacement. Why that date is significant is because it will be at the end of the Court’s fall sitting, letting her use the next six months that she is able to clear off the files from her desk and work on any outstanding judgments rather than depart mid-sitting and the organizational chaos that would follow.

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The next steps are now an important consideration. The government will not only have to name a new Chief Justice, but a new judge from Western Canada (and likely BC given that’s where McLachlin was appointed from). And in order to keep gender balance on the court it will likely have to be a woman, and in accordance with this government’s push for diversity, it will likely be a person of colour, if not someone Indigenous (and let us not forget that said person must also be fluently bilingual, which is another self-imposed criteria that this government has made for itself). This may be easier to find in BC than it was in Atlantic Canada, mind you. And for Chief Justice? My money is on Justice Richard Wagner, whom I know many close the court have already tapped as being the successor if they had their druthers.

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Of course, we’ll see if this government can get an appointment process back up and running within the six months. Experience has shown us that they seem to have difficulty with that, especially as there are still some sixty or so federally appointed judicial vacancies still remaining around the country, and a few of the Judicial Advisory Committees charged with finding candidates for said vacancies still not fully appointed either, which is a problem. Of course, they may be able to largely reconstitute the committee that oversaw the nomination of Justice Rowe, with Kim Campbell again in charge of the process, but I guess we’ll see how long that takes.

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For more reaction, here’s Emmett Macfarlane on As It Happens and in the Ottawa Citizen, and Carissima Mathen on Power Play.

Good reads:

  • The government signed a childcare deal with the provinces (except Quebec) to create 40,000 spaces over three years, with emphasis on families with higher needs.
  • Chrystia Freeland offered the frank assessment that Canada and the US remain “very far apart” on a new softwood lumber agreement.
  • The government says the Der Spiegel article claiming Trudeau is moving to appease Trump on climate in a G20 agreement is incorrect and are seeking a retraction.
  • Jane Philpott singled out BC for the issue of added fees in healthcare delivery.
  • Harjit Sajjan says the government is considering NATO’s request for police trainers in Afghanistan, but the military focus remains Iraq.
  • Tony Clement says he’s changed his mind and now wants the Senate to pass the national security review committee legislation without major amendments.
  • Oh noes! Banks are lobbying the government! How…terrible? Seriously, could we get a qualitative analysis of what they’re asking for, not just how often they lobby?
  • Despite an internal report calling for body-mounted cameras, the RCMP has put off introducing them indefinitely while they conduct “feasibility studies.”
  • The Independent Senators Group will hold a leadership vote in September; Senator Elaine McCoy hasn’t decided if she’ll run for the position again.
  • Liberal MP Arnold Chan, whose cancer has returned, gave what sounded like a farewell speech in the Commons yesterday (but he says he plans to carry on sitting).
  • Brad Trost’s leadership campaign was fined $50,000 for leaking the Conservative membership list to the National Firearms Association.
  • With Jagmeet Singh hanging onto his Queen’s Park seat, Chantal Hébert points out that the history of people going from provincial to federal politics is not great.
  • Susan Delacourt wonders if big tent parties remain relevant at the grassroots level (which is one reason I call for their invigoration in my book).
  • Oh, look – Andrew Coyne is hysterical yet again that the Senate is *gasp!* doing their job and amending bills! It’s a constitutional crisis! Someone get a fainting couch!

Odds and ends:

Kady O’Malley notes the short title of the bill on the long-gun registry, and how it’s not this government’s usual practice of bland names.

The chairman of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais, says that he didn’t re-apply for his position now that his tenures is coming to an end.

One thought on “Roundup: The looming retirement of the Chief Justice”

  1. I thought you would have a full-on head explosion over the Coyne piece, which is on a par with many of his other drive-by shootings: loud but empty drivel.

    He is extremely cavalier with his insinuations and dishonest when presenting “facts” (his final sentence contains the statement that senators are “a coven of lifetime appointees”, for instance.)

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