Trudeau’s latest pick for SCC donated to Liberals before her 2017 appointment to federal bench

Law360 Canada (August 26, 2022, 2:45 PM EDT) -- As a lawyer, before she joined the Ontario Superior Court in 2017, soon-to-be Supreme Court of Canada Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin — whose Sept. 1 appointment was announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today — donated a small amount to Trudeau’s Liberal leadership campaign, and she and her spouse, Ottawa lawyer Pierre Robichaud, both made other donations to the Liberal Party, discloses a search by The Lawyer’s Daily of Elections Canada political financing data.

Neither Justice O’Bonsawin nor her spouse donated to other federal political parties during the past decade, according to amended/revised online-searchable Elections Canada records.

Justice O’Bonsawin was general counsel with the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group in Ottawa when she made her donations to the Liberals, which were well below federal political financing limits: an approximate total of $626 to the Liberals during the period 2011 to 2013, according to records on the Elections Canada website.

The available records dating back more than a decade indicate that before being appointed to the superior trial court in 2017 by then-Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, Justice O’Bonsawin donated: in 2012, $20 to Trudeau’s successful 2013 leadership bid and in 2011, she donated $125 to Stephane Dion’s leadership campaign; in 2011, $339 to Julie Bourgeois, the ex-Ottawa Crown who was later appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2015, but ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in 2011 in the federal riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (including the Ottawa-area ward where Justice O’Bonsawin and her spouse resided);and in 2011 and 2012, a total of $142 to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Robichaud, a senior partner with Ottawa’s Andrews Robichaud PC, an intellectual property and business law boutique of nine lawyers, donated more to the Liberals than his spouse, Elections Canada records indicate: in 2019, he donated $500 to the Beauséjour federal Liberal riding association of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, and $1,188 to the Liberals in 2015.

Justice O’Bonsawin’s historic appointment as the Supreme Court of Canada’s first Indigenous judge marks the fifth time Trudeau has appointed a jurist to the top court under the revised appointment process rolled out by his Liberal government in 2016. It provides the prime minister with a shortlist of three to five highly qualified candidates vetted and chosen by an independent and non-partisan advisory board which includes legal representatives, and which was chaired this year by former Prince Edward Island premier Wade MacLauchlan.

Chief Justice of Canada Richard Wagner welcomed Justice O’Bonsawin’s appointment, which becomes effective Sept. 1 after Justice Michael Moldaver retires.

“Justice O’Bonsawin is an esteemed jurist in the areas of mental health, Indigenous, labour and employment law,” Chief Justice Wagner said in a prepared statement.

“Throughout her career as a lawyer and a judge, she has proven herself to be principled, authentic and hard-working,” he said. “My colleagues and I are very pleased to welcome the court’s first Indigenous member, which further enables all Canadians to see themselves reflected in their institutions, including the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Lawyers have for more than a century routinely made financial donations to politicians — often to more than one federal party. Registered campaign financing donations in support of political candidates and political parties are encouraged in Canada via generous tax credits. Moreover, individual contribution limits are low compared to many other countries.

While political donations are a fixture of Canadian democracy, professional ethics aimed at preserving Canadian judges’ impartiality prohibit lawyers from engaging in partisan political activity after they join the bench, including barring financial or other contributions to political parties and campaigns, according to the Canadian Judicial Council’s 2021 Ethical Principles for Judges.

Like Justice O’Bonsawin, several current Supreme Court of Canada judges made political contributions before their appointments, Elections Canada records available online reveal.

In 2015 Justice Mahmud Jamal, a top Toronto civil litigator who was elevated to the Supreme Court by Trudeau last year, donated, before his 2019 appointment to the Ontario Court of Appeal $1,500, made up of $500 to each of the federal Liberal, Conservative and NDP parties, according to Election Canada’s revised/amended data.

Before her appointment to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in 2005, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Sheilah Martin, who was elevated by Trudeau to the top court from the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2017, donated $345 to the Liberal Party of Canada in 2005, Elections Canada records indicate. She made no donations to other federal political parties, according to the online records.

The Lawyer’s Daily could not immediately ascertain whether “Russell Brown” of Edmonton, who donated $250 to the federal Conservative Party in 2011 — a period during which Supreme Court of Canada Justice Russell Brown was still a lawyer and law professor in Edmonton, and before his appointment to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in 2013 by the Conservative government — is the same person as Justice Brown. There were no donations by this Russell Brown to other political parties.

Justice Suzanne Côté, a star civil litigator appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada straight from the Montreal bar in 2014, donated to both the federal Conservatives and Liberals in Quebec, Elections Canada records show: $850 and $1,100 respectively to the Conservatives in 2006 and 2007, and $438 to the federal Liberals in 2009.

Elections Canada records searchable online do not report any federal political contributions from more recent Supreme Court of Canada appointees, Justices Nicholas Kasirer and Malcolm Rowe, who were appointed respectively in 2019 and 2016.

The earliest records The Lawyer’s Daily pulled up online went back to 2004. We found no records of political contributions in Elections Canada’s online data by Supreme Court Chief Justice Wagner and Supreme Court Justice Andromache Karakatsanis — both were appointed to the federal trial benches in the early 2000s — or for Justice Moldaver who was appointed to the Ontario Supreme Court in 1990.

Photo of Justice Suzanne Côté by Philippe Landreville / SCC Collection
Photo of Justice Justice Sheilah Martin by SCC Collection
Photo of Justice Mahmud Jamal by SCC Collection

If you have any information, story ideas or news tips for The Lawyer’s Daily, please contact Cristin Schmitz at Cristin.schmitz@lexisnexis.ca or call 613-820-2794.