Frank IacobucciCCKCLSMOMRI (born June 29, 1937) is a former Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 until his retirement from the bench in 2004. He was the first Italian-Canadian, allophonejudge on the court.[1] Iacobucci was also the first judge on the Supreme Court to have been born, raised and educated in British Columbia.[2] Iacobucci has had a distinguished career in private practice, academia, the civil service and the judiciary.[3]
Before his elevation to the nation's top court, he was a tenured professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law for eighteen years, and was appointed dean of the faculty in 1979. From 1985 to 1988, he served as the Deputy Attorney General of Canada, playing a key role in constitutional law negotiations during the Meech Lake Accord process. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed him Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Canada in 1988.
As a former private corporate lawyer, he is considered an expert in business and tax law. He currently serves as senior counsel at the business law firm Torys LLP.[4]
Early life and education
Iacobucci was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to working-class Italian immigrants, Gabriel Iacobucci and Rosina Pirillo.[5] His father emigrated from Abruzzo in 1922 and his mother emigrated from Calabria in 1925.[6] He was the third of four children and attended Britannia Secondary School. In high school he worked in a steel foundry alongside his father and was inspired by the story of Angelo Branca to pursue law.[2] As his parents did not have the opportunity to receive a formal education, they stressed the importance of their children receiving higher education.
Taking a chance to pursue a career in academia, he was an associate professor and then a professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law between 1967 and 1985. He subsequently served as associated dean of the faculty from 1973 to 1975, and was a visiting fellow at Wolfson College in 1978. He served as dean of the faculty from 1979 to 1983. He also acted as vice-president and provost of the university from November 1983 to September 1985. It is within this time period (1982 to 1985), Iacobucci was also a commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and was counsel to the Estey Commission in 1974.[2]
Iacobucci was also a part of several noteworthy organizations. He was director for the National Congress of Italian Canadians from 1979 to 1983, and became vice-president in 1980, serving for three years. He was also vice-president and member on the board of governors for the Canadian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies from 1981 to 1998. From 1976 to 1988, he was the director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Additionally, Iacobucci was also the director of Cambridge Canada Trust for seven years beginning in 1984.[5]
He entered the public service in 1985 as Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada in the federal government. He was a principal member of the federal team in negotiations over the Meech Lake Accord in 1987.[9] Just three years after entering the civil service, in September 1988, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Federal Court.[7]
Iacobucci was a member of the Canadian Judicial Council and Education Committee from 1988 to 1991 and was on the executive committee in his last year.[5] In 1989, he became governor of the Canadian Judicial Centre/National Judicial Institute until 2004. He is a former elder at Islington United Church.[5]
On January 7, 1991, Justice Iacobucci was appointed as justice of the Supreme Court of Canada by Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and served in this capacity until retiring on July 1, 2004.
While serving as a Supreme Court judge, he was also a member of the advisory council for the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy before becoming director in 1993. In 1996, Iacobucci sat on the advisory committee as a member for McGill University Faculty of Law until 2004. He was a member of the advisory board for the Institute of Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa from 1998 to 2004.[5]
Engagements after retiring from court
Following his retirement from the Supreme Court, Iacobucci was appointed interim president of the University of Toronto in 2004, and served in that post until he was replaced by David Naylor in October 2005.
He was a conduct review advisor with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board from 2005 to 2018 and a member of the Ontario Law Commission from 2006 to 2012.
He sat on a number of board of directors including Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star and a series of smaller newspapers and owner of Harlequin Enterprises, a global publisher of popular romance novels. Iacobucci is the former chairman of Torstar.[12]
Iacobucci served as the commissioner of an internal inquiry into the role of Canadian officials in the torture and detention of three Arab-Canadians in Syria and Egypt as the personal appointee of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.[13][14][15] The report concludes that deficient information-sharing by CSIS and the RCMP likely contributed indirectly to the detention of Mr. Nureddin and Mr. Elaati, and that similar sharing of information likely contributed to the mistreatment amounting to torture of all three.[14]
On August 11, 2011, Ontario announced Iacobucci's appointment to "review the process for including individuals living in First Nations reserve communities on the (Ontario's) jury rolls," following concerns from First Nation organizations and jurists about Aboriginal people being under-represented on juries in Ontario.[16][17] The report, released in February, 2013, determined under-representation of individuals living on reserves on Ontario's jury roll to be a symptom of a crisis. He expressed hope his report would serve as a wake-up call to remedy broader and systemic issues that are at the heart of the current dysfunctional relationship between Ontario's justice system and Aboriginal peoples in the province. In addition to 17 specific recommendations, Iacobucci emphasized the need for establishing a government-to-government relationship that "incorporates an underlying respect for cultural, traditional, and historical values that are different." He stated "this government-to-government relationship . . . must underlie the relationship between Ontario and First Nations going forward in dealing with justice and jury representation issues."
On August 28, 2013, in response to the July 27, 2013 shooting death of Sammy Yatim by Toronto Police officer James Forcillo, Iacobucci was requested by Chief of PoliceBill Blair to conduct an independent review of "the policies, practices, and procedures of, and the services provided by, the TPS with respect to the use of lethal force or potentially lethal force, in particular in encounters with persons who are or may be emotionally disturbed, mentally disturbed or cognitively impaired.". On July 24, 2014, the "Police Encounters with People in Crisis – An Independent Review Conducted by The Honourable Frank Iacobucci for Chief of Police William Blair, Toronto Police Service" report was delivered and was released to the public by Chief Blair. The 400+ page report made 84 recommendations pertaining to the mental health system and Toronto Police and focusing on police culture, training, supervision, and selection of new officers, the mental health of police personnel, use of force, crisis intervention, and equipment, along with suggestions surrounding implementation of the reports recommendations.[18] The report, originally arranged by Blair under his authority as chief, without Toronto Police Services Board approval, was contracted through the Toronto law firm of Torys LLP for the $500,000.00 maximum funding amount the chief was authorized to approve without board approval; in May 2014, after the majority of the work had been performed, the chief requested, and the board ultimately approved, the revised cost for the report of $985,000.00.[19]
From 2014 to 2017, he was a member of the board of directors for the Canadians for a New Partnership.
In November 2015, the Government of Alberta retained Iacobucci to conduct an independent review of—and advice in connection with—the decision of former Alberta Ethics Commissioner Neil Wilkinson to clear former Alberta premier Alison Redford of conflict of interest charges under Alberta's Conflicts of Interest Act resulting from Redford having awarded the contract for a multibillion-dollar contract to conduct litigation against tobacco companies on behalf of the Government to a Calgary law firm for which her former husband was a partner while she was Minister of Justice.[20] The report affirmed the concern that had been raised by the opposition that Mr. Wilkinson had not had necessary information available to him in reaching the decision, particularly his being refused access to an Alberta Justice briefing note that listed the law firm as the last of three that should be considered.[20]
On October 3, 2018, Iacobucci was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the position of special envoy for the controversial Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.[21] In February / March 2019 media reports noted that Iacobucci had been retained by SNC-Lavalin, concurrent with the company's controversial efforts to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in order to avoid a trial for allegedly bribing Saadi Gaddafi to win engineering and construction contracts in Libya, prior to the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.[22]
Currently, he is a member of the board of directors with COSTI Immigration Services and has been since 2009.
Iacobucci has received numerous awards, medals, honours and other recognition from across Canada and from organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.[3]
He has been honoured by several prominent Italian/Italian-Canadian entities for his contributions to the community. The Confratellanza Italo-Canadese presented him with the Italo-Canadian of the Year Award in 1985.[24] In the same year, he was named Man of the Year by the Canadian-Italian Business and Professional Association of Toronto. The National Congress of Italian Canadians awarded him the Ordine al Merito in 1989.
In 1993, he received the Commendatore dell'Ordine Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, the highest honour presented by the Italian Republic. He was also awarded the Medaglia d'Argento del Presidente della Repubblica Italiana in 2000. In Montreal, the Ordre des Fils d'Italie au Canada granted Iacobucci the Lion d'Or Award in 1995. That same year, the Federation of Clubs Cosentini of Ontario presented him with the Cosentino dell'Anno Award. Iacobucci also acquired the Canadian-Italian National Award back in the year 2000. He was granted the Premio Italia nel Mondo/Italy in the World Award the following year. In 2002, he was presented with the Valigia d'Oro Award.
In 2007, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.[25] In the same year, and then again in February 2017, Iacobucci held the James R. Bullock Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies, which enhances the field of Canadian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Israel. He than met with academic leaders, professors and students of the Hebrew University and of Tel Aviv University.[26]
In 2009, Iacobucci received a star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, Canada[27] On 2 October 2009, he was awarded the Justice Medal for lifetime achievement from the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice.[28]
Iacobucci met Harvard-educated lawyer Nancy Elizabeth Eastham while they were both at Cambridge.[2] The couple married on 31 October 1964 and have three children: Andrew, Edward Iacobucci (also a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto) and Catherine.[5] The couple also have eight grandchildren.[2]
The University of Toronto Faculty of Law is the law school of the University of Toronto. Maclean's has consistently assessed the Faculty as the highest ranked common law school in Canada and the highest ranked in terms of faculty journal citations. The Faculty offers the JD, LLM, SJD, MSL, and GPLLM degrees in law.
Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal. A variety of LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law are available.
Bora Laskin was a Canadian jurist who served as the 14th chief justice of Canada from 1973 to 1984. Laskin was appointed a puisne justice of the Supreme Court in 1970, and served on the Ontario Court of Appeal from 1965 to 1970. Before he was named to the bench, Laskin worked as a lawyer and in academia.
Roland Roy McMurtry was a Canadian lawyer, judge and politician in Ontario. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1975 to 1985, serving in the cabinet of Bill Davis as Attorney General and as Solicitor General. After leaving politics, McMurtry was High Commissioner of Canada to the United Kingdom between 1985 and 1988. He became a judge in 1991 and was appointed Chief Justice of Ontario in 1996. McMurtry retired from the bench in 2007 and returned to the private practice of law.
Rosalie Silberman Abella is a Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retired from the federal bench in 2021.
John Charles Major is a Canadian jurist and was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1992 to 2005.
The Peter A. Allard School of Law is the law school of the University of British Columbia. The faculty offers the Juris Doctor degree. The faculty features courses on business law, tax law, environmental and natural resource law, indigenous law, Pacific Rim issues, and feminist legal theory.
The Attorney General of Ontario is the chief legal adviser to His Majesty the King in Right of Ontario and, by extension, the Government of Ontario. The Attorney General is a senior member of the Executive Council of Ontario and oversees the Ministry of the Attorney General – the department responsible for the oversight of the justice system in the province of Ontario. The Attorney General is an elected Member of Provincial Parliament who is appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario on the constitutional advice of the Premier of Ontario. The Ministry is the largest justice system in Canada and one of the largest in North America.
Torys LLP is a Canadian international corporate law firm with offices in Toronto, Calgary, New York, Montreal and Halifax. The firm acts for a wide range of commercial clients and financial institutions in Canada, the United States, and globally.
The University of Alberta Faculty of Law is the graduate school of law of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Established as an undergraduate faculty in 1912 it is the third oldest law school in Canada, and often considered the oldest law school in Western Canada.
Thomas Albert Cromwell is a Canadian jurist and former Puisne Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada. After eleven years on the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, Cromwell was nominated to succeed Michel Bastarache and occupy the seat traditionally reserved for Atlantic provinces on the Supreme Court of Canada by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and assumed office on December 22, 2008. Cromwell retired in September 2016, and was succeeded by Malcolm Rowe.
Robert James Sharpe, OC, FRSC is a Canadian lawyer, author, academic, and judge. He was dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 1990 to 1995 and a judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 1999 to 2020.
Barbara Louise Jackman is a Canadian lawyer specializing in immigration and refugee law, with particular emphasis on cases involving domestic violence and international human rights issues, torture and other cruel or unusual punishment, allegations of membership in and/or support of terrorist organizations, the rights and protections afforded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Canada's responsibilities under international treaties. She has been described as being one of Canada's most effective advocates for immigration and refugee rights.
Gloria Jean Epstein is a former judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She had also previously been appointed to the Court of Ontario. She is known for her 1999 trial ruling in M v H that Ontario's Family Law Act was unconstitutional for discriminating against same-sex couples by denying them the same benefits as legally-married heterosexual couples. Epstein's decision was appealed up to the Supreme Court of Canada and upheld.
Robert Patrick Armstrong is a Canadian lawyer and retired judge. He served on the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 2002 until his retirement in 2013. Before serving on the bench, Armstrong was a partner at Torys and was lead counsel in the Dubin Inquiry on steroid use in Canadian sports. After leaving the bench, Armstrong joined Arbitration Place, a Canadian group specializing in alternative dispute resolution.
Edward Michael Iacobucci is a Canadian legal academic who is a former dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he is also the James M. Tory Professor of Law. Before taking over from interim dean Jutta Brunnée on January 1, 2015, for a five-year term, he was a professor in the faculty, the faculty's associate dean of research, and the Osler Chair in Business Law. His primary research areas are corporate law, competition law, and the intersection of economics and the law.
Sheilah L. Martin is a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, having served in that role since December 18, 2017. She was nominated to the court by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on November 29, 2017. Before her appointment to Canada's highest court, Martin had served on the Court of Appeal of Alberta, the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories, and the Court of Appeal of Nunavut since 2016, and the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta from 2005 to 2016.
John B. Laskin is a justice of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada.
Michelle O'Bonsawin is a Canadian jurist serving as a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada since September 1, 2022. Before her appointment to the Supreme Court, she served as a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice from 2017 to 2022. O'Bonsawin is the first Indigenous Canadian to serve as a Supreme Court justice.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
