Bora Laskin

Bora Laskin

Bora Laskin, lawyer, judge (b at Fort William [Thunder Bay], Ont 5 Oct 1912; d at Ottawa 26 Mar 1984). After graduating from U of T (BA 1933, MA 1935), Laskin received an LLB from Osgoode Hall in 1936 and an LLM from Harvard in 1937. Called to the Ontario Bar in 1937, he taught law at the University of Toronto from 1940 to 1945, Osgoode Hall from 1945 to 1949, and returned to U of T from 1949 to 1965. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1956, to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1965, and a puisne judge in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1970. Named chief justice of Canada in 1973, he died in office. Known throughout his career as a civil libertarian and as a brilliant legal scholar, especially in constitutional and labour law, he was author of Canadian Constitutional Law (1963) and The British Tradition in Canadian Law (1969).