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The Right Honourable Bora Laskin (October 5, 1912 – March 17, 1984) was a Canadian jurist, who served on the Supreme Court of Canada for fourteen years, including a decade as its Chief Justice.
Born in Fort William, Ontario, Laskin was educated at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School. From 1933 to 1936, he served his articles and continued to study at the University of Toronto. He received the degrees of M.A. in 1935 and
LL.B. in 1936. In 1937, he received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.
Despite his superior academic record, Laskin, who was Jewish, was unable to find work at any law firm of note, because of the anti-Semitism that pervaded the legal profession at the time. As a result, his first job after graduating was writing headnotes (i.e., article synoposes) for a legal journal. Ultimately, Laskin decided to pursue his career in academia.
From 1940 to 1965 he taught at the University of Toronto (except for the period 1945 - 1949 when he taught at Osgoode Hall). For twenty-three years he served as associate editor of Dominion Law Reports and Canadian Criminal Cases. He also wrote Canadian Constitutional Law and many other legal texts.
His career on the bench began in 1965 with his appointment to the Ontario Court of Appeal. On March 19, 1970 he became the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. He was appointed Chief Justice on December 27, 1973, a position he held until his death in 1984.
Laskin was a liberal jurist who often found himself on the minority side of decisions. His specialty was labour law and constitutional law and he had a reputation as a civil libertarian. He presided over a number of landmark cases, most notably the 1981 reference to the Court on Pierre Trudeau's attempt to have the federal government unilaterally patriate the British North America Act without the consent of the provinces (see Canadian Constitution). The Laskin court ruled that while such a unilateral action was technically constitutional it would also violate the constitutional convention that had emerged since Canadian Confederation. As a result of the decision, Trudeau decided to begin a new round of negotiations with the provinces, which resulted in a new Constitution being agreed to by all provinces save Quebec.
On March 13, 1984 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
See also: List of Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada
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