Lawrence O'Neil | |
---|---|
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Cape Breton Highlands—Canso | |
In office 4 September 1984 –21 November 1988 | |
Preceded by | Allan MacEachen |
Succeeded by | Francis LeBlanc |
Personal details | |
Born | 14 November 1954 |
Political party | Progressive Conservative |
Profession | Lawyer,judge,politician |
Lawrence I. O'Neil (born 14 November 1954) is a Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court,Family Division. He was a lawyer by profession. Between 1984 and 1988,he was a Progressive Conservative party member of the House of Commons of Canada.
O'Neil graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in 1976 where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He was admitted to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1979 after earning a Bachelor of Laws degree from Dalhousie University.
He then practiced with Pickup &MacDowell and as a sole practitioner. He then became a staff lawyer with Nova Scotia Legal Aid in Antigonish until the time of his appointment.
He was elected at Cape Breton Highlands—Canso electoral district in the 1984 federal election,thus he served in the 33rd Canadian Parliament. O'Neil was defeated in the 1988 federal election by Francis LeBlanc of the Liberal Party.
O'Neil was appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on 19 September 2007 by Justice Minister Honourable Robert Nicholson. The swearing in ceremony took place on 23 October 2007 in St. Ninian's Place on the Campus of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish,Nova Scotia.
The appointment was controversial due to past statements while an MP regarding abortion. [1] In 1985,O'Neil moved to introduce a bill to amend the Criminal Code to require that every unborn child be represented by legal counsel at therapeutic abortion committees across the country. On 28 April 1987,he told the House of Commons that "unborn children across this country are being suctioned from the womb by women who want to put an end to their pregnancy. Those children are being dismembered." On 27 July 1988,he stated in the House of Commons that "[i]t appears that there is widespread acceptance of the notion that a mother should have the right to control her body. There is no such right." [2]
O'Neil delayed an adoption hearing because of entirely hypothetical constitutional concerns about whether the child's biological father had been given proper notice. In a unanimous decision,the Nova Scotia Appeal Court noted that the adoptive parents of a young baby found themselves caught in a "judge-made vortex of uncertainty and delay" that stalled the adoption for almost a year at great expense and anxiety to the family. [3]
The Nova Scotia Appeal Court found that O'Neil erred in legal principle when he initiated a self-directed constitutional reference,which the court termed both inappropriate and ill-conceived. The Appeal Court stated that O'Neil was "provided with the correct legal principles and authorities which ought to have informed his decision.... he ignored these and the practical consequences of his decision." [4]
Roe v. Wade,410 U.S. 113 (1973),was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws,and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether,or to what extent,abortion should be legal,who should decide the legality of abortion,and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication. The Supreme Court overruled Roe in 2022,ending the constitutional right to abortion.
William Alexander Henry was a Canadian lawyer,politician,and judge. He was one of the Fathers of Confederation and one of the first judges of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Allan Joseph MacEachen was a Canadian politician and statesman who served as a senator and several times as a Cabinet minister. He was the first deputy prime minister of Canada and served from 1977 to 1979 and 1980 to 1984.
Henekh "Henry" Morgentaler,was a Polish-born Canadian physician and abortion rights advocate who fought numerous legal battles aimed at expanding abortion rights in Canada. As a Jewish youth during World War II,Morgentaler was imprisoned at the ŁódźGhetto and later at the Dachau concentration camp.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan was a Canadian lawyer,newspaper editor,businessman,and provincial and federal politician.
St. Francis Xavier University is a public undergraduate liberal arts university located in Antigonish,Nova Scotia,Canada. It is a member of the Maple League,a group of primarily undergraduate universities in Eastern Canada.
Antigonish is a town in Antigonish County,Nova Scotia,Canada. The town is home to St. Francis Xavier University and the oldest continuous Highland games outside Scotland. It is approximately 160 kilometres northeast of Halifax,the provincial capital.
Roland Almon Ritchie,was a Canadian lawyer and puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Antigonish was a federal electoral district in Nova Scotia,Canada,that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 1917. It was created in the British North America Act,1867. The federal riding was dissolved in 1914 into the riding of Antigonish—Guysborough. It consisted of the County of Antigonish.
Hugh Macdonald,was a lawyer,judge and member of the First Canadian Parliament. He represented the Antigonish riding of Nova Scotia,from 1867 to 1869,along with William Hallett Ray,as an Anti-Confederate and,from 1869 to 1873,as a Liberal-Conservative.
R v Morgentaler was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada invalidating a provincial attempt to regulate abortions in Canada. This followed the 1988 decision R. v. Morgentaler,which had struck down the federal abortion law as a breach of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1993,the provincial regulations were ruled to be a criminal law,which would violate the Constitution Act,1867. That Act assigns criminal law exclusively to the federal Parliament of Canada.
John William Gillis,generally known as Bill Gillis,was a Canadian politician who served in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1970 to 1998. He represented the electoral district of Antigonish for the Liberals.
Angus McIsaac was a Canadian lawyer,judge and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Antigonish in the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal member from 1873 to 1885.
Colin Francis McIsaac,was a Nova Scotia lawyer and political figure. He represented Antigonish in the House of Commons of Canada from 1895 to 1905 and Antigonish—Guysborough from 1922 to 1925 as a Liberal member.
The Nova Scotia order of precedence is a nominal and symbolic hierarchy of important positions within the province of Nova Scotia. It has no legal standing but is used to dictate ceremonial protocol at events of a provincial nature.
William Chisholm was a Canadian politician.
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.
Alexander Hugh McKinnon was a lawyer,judge and politician in Nova Scotia,Canada. He represented Inverness in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1940 to 1953 as a Liberal member.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is a Canadian legal advocacy organization specializing in a social conservative approach to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The libertarian organisation has partnered with several right-wing backers in the United States.
Arthur Joseph LeBlanc is the 33rd and current lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia.