Joseph J. Arvay, Q.C holds law degrees from the University of Western Ontario Law School and Harvard Law School. He is called to the Bars of both British Columbia and the Yukon. Mr. Arvay has a busy civil litigation practice but with an emphasis on constitutional and administrative law matters. He has been involved in many constitutional cases of importance in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. Mr. Arvay has been involved in a number of aboriginal-rights litigation cases and is also counsel on medical malpractice cases, class actions, commercial litigation and defamation. Mr. Arvay has been counsel on a number of landmark constitutional law cases which include Egan and Nesbit: the first Supreme Court of Canada decision which established that sexual orientation is a protected ground of discrimination under the Charter. The Little Sisters litigation which dealt both with the powers of Canada Customs and the law of "advanced costs"; the "Same Sex Marriage" litigation; Health Services which established that collective bargaining is constitutionally protected under freedom of association; Insite which established the right of addicts to supervised injection and most recently the Carter/Gloria Taylor case in which the B.C. Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to physician assisted dying.
In 2000 Joseph Arvay was the recipient of the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award and described by Madam Justice Michèle Rivet, President, (Canadian Section) International Commission of Jurists as "one of Canada's most tireless civil rights and human rights lawyers [who] has made a exceptional commitment to human rights in this country." He also received the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, "Reg Robson 2005 Award" on March 31, 2005 for his long-standing work in the area of civil liberties. In 2012 he was awarded the BCLA's inaugural Liberty Award for legal advocacy in service of human rights and civil liberties. Mr. Arvay has been named as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.
