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.
The Chief Justice of Canada will retire from the Court on December 15, 2017.#SCCRetirement https://t.co/XuP8KDndx2 pic.twitter.com/c9EwmbuFaJ
— Supreme Court of Canada (@SCC_eng) June 12, 2017
Justice Minister Wilson Raybould says it's with sadness the govt received Chief Justice McLachlin's retirement; calls her a trailblazer pic.twitter.com/k72YXtpDsk
— Laura Stone (@l_stone) June 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/874344373873508354
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/874344925613219845
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.
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/874346587820089344
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/874346899305836544
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/874347634542116864
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.
https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/874350151728599040
For more reaction, here’s Emmett Macfarlane on As It Happens and in the Ottawa Citizen, and Carissima Mathen on Power Play.