Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Bora Laskin

Today, Historica Canada released a new Heritage Minute, recognizing the legacy of Canada’s Bora Laskin, 14th Chief Justice of Canada (1973-1984), which the iconic Victor Garber portrays. He was the first Jewish member of the Supreme Court when appointed to Canada’s highest bench in 1970.

According to the biography by Philip Girard, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life, during a period when the Toronto legal community was marked by widespread antisemitism, Laskin was among the Jewish lawyers who, through both private acts of resistance and advocacy for stronger human rights legislation, played a significant role in combating discrimination after World War II.

As a faculty member, Laskin was instrumental in shaping 75 years of modern legal education at the University of Toronto, a milestone U of T's Faculty of Law celebrated this academic year.

Laskin was an outstanding scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional and labour law. In addition to his degrees from U of T and Osgoode Hall Law School, he earned a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1937 and later received an honorary doctorate from the school in 1979.

“After his time at Harvard, Bora Laskin must have felt simply incredulous at having to defend the need for serious academic training and intellectual inquiry into the law,” said Professor Kerry Rittich at this year’s biennial conference in celebration of U of T Law 75— Law in a Changing World: Looking Forward by Looking Back.

Laskin, working alongside Dean Cecil “Caesar” Wright (1949-1965) and fellow colleagues, advanced academic legal education as a path to the profession in Ontario and established U of T’s Faculty of Law.

“He is one of the most in-exhaustingly compelling figures of Canadian law,” said Rittich of Laskin's contributions as professor, labour arbitrator, appellate judge and then Chief Justice of Canada.

In 1991, U of T's Bora Laskin Law Library was named in his honour. Today, we celebrate Laskin’s enduring contributions to U of T and to law and jurisprudence.  

Graduating class composite photo of Professor Laskin in the 1950s