Members include lawyers Aimée Craft, Justin Kingston, J. Michael MacDonald, Justin Robichaud
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Maureen McTeer as chair and Riel Bellegarde, Aimée Craft, Justin E. Kingston, Marie-Pierre Lavoie, J. Michael MacDonald, Justin Robichaud, and Laura Spitz as members of the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments.
The prime minister’s news release explained that the board will select the candidates who may replace Justice Sheilah L. Martin, who will retire as of May 30.
“The members of the Independent Advisory Board will help ensure we identify outstanding candidates to serve on the Supreme Court of Canada – candidates with the experience and judgment required to serve on our highest court,” Carney said in the news release.
The board members will:
- Review applications submitted to the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs
- Narrow them down to jurists of the highest calibre who are bilingual and representative of Canada’s diversity
- Send the shortlist to Carney for consideration
“A strong and independent judiciary is fundamental to our democracy,” Carney said in the news release.
Qualified applicants, including those in Western Canada and Northern Canada, could apply until Apr. 27 to serve on the Independent Advisory Board. Considerations for the members’ selection included their expertise, integrity, and distinguished service in the country’s legal, academic, and public institutions.
Bellegarde is president and chief executive officer of the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, while Lavoie is an English-to-French translator. Biographical notes provided more information regarding the board’s chair and other members.
Maureen McTeer
As a Canadian lawyer and rights advocate, McTeer has worked on and contributed to areas including health law and advocacy, reproductive and other policy, human genetics, and gender equality.
She was an inaugural member of Canada’s Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. She has also served in leadership positions at the Global Commission on Pollution, Health, and Development and the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) Eastern and Central European Legal Programs.
McTeer has authored five bestselling books and lectured on health and medical law at universities throughout North America.
Aimée Craft
Craft is a lawyer of Anishinaabe-Métis and settler descent, a professor at the University of Ottawa, and a holder of a university research chair in Indigenous water governance. Her work has focused on Indigenous legal traditions and treaties.
She has been a research director for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
Canadian Lawyer named Craft one of its Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in 2016. She received the CBA President’s Award in 2021.
Justin Kingston
As a bilingual lawyer and partner at McCuaig Desrochers LLP, Kingston has handled matters involving corporate and commercial law, wills and estate planning, estate administration, real estate, and employment disputes.
He is president of the Fédérations des associations de juristes d’expression françaises de common law and a session lecturer at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law.
Kingston has presented for the Legal Education Society of Alberta and other community groups. As a volunteer for the Edmonton Community Legal Centre, he has assisted people dealing with estate, tenancy, and employment law issues.
J. Michael MacDonald
Since 2019, MacDonald has been counsel at Stewart McKelvey.
In 2004, he became chief justice of Nova Scotia and of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. At the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, he became associate chief justice in 1998 and one of its justices in 1995.
At the Canadian Judicial Council, he has been a member for two decades and chair of numerous committees, including the Judicial Conduct Committee.
Justin Robichaud
Robichaud is a founding partner at Fidelis Law in Moncton, New Brunswick. There, he has focused on personal injury and insurance law litigation and has appeared before all court levels in the province.
He is vice president and president-elect of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. He was also president of the Canadian Bar Association’s New Brunswick branch and of the Law Society of New Brunswick.
Robichaud has been a sessional lecturer at the Université de Moncton. He earned a King’s Counsel designation in 2021 and admission to the New Brunswick bar in 2011.
Laura Spitz
Spitz is dean and professor at the University of Calgary Faculty of Law. She has also been a visiting professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Law School.
Beyond her legal scholarship and academic leadership, she previously worked as a Vancouver-based corporate and commercial lawyer handling First Nations economic development law matters. She clerked at the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
