Article

Gérald-A. Beaudoin

Published Online January 24, 2008

Last Edited December 15, 2013

Gérald-A. Beaudoin, professor of law, lawyer, senator (b at Montréal 15 Apr 1929). A leading expert on the Canadian CONSTITUTION and human rights, Beaudoin was educated at the Universities of Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto and did graduate work at several European universities.

Beaudoin, Gérald-A.

Gérald-A. Beaudoin, professor of law, lawyer, senator (b at Montréal 15 Apr 1929). A leading expert on the Canadian CONSTITUTION and human rights, Beaudoin was educated at the Universities of Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto and did graduate work at several European universities. After serving as counsel in the federal Department of Justice, he taught law at the University of Ottawa where he served as dean of civil law 1969 to 1979, and was director of the Human Rights Centre from 1986 to 1988. A prolific author of legal articles and treatises, his main works include Le partage des pouvoirs (1980) and La Constitution du Canada (1990), and he was co-editor of successive editions of the CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS (1982, 1989).

He was a member of the Pépin-Robarts Commission, 1977-79, and after his appointment as a Conservative senator in 1988, he was co-chairman of the Beaudoin-Edwards joint committee on constitutional amendment and of the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee on constitutional renewal. He also presided over the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs and was a member of the Senate committee on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Of a genial and outgoing disposition, he has friends in all sectors of society and all political parties. A strong proponent of bilingualism and a united Canada, he is in frequent demand as a speaker and lecturer in Canada and abroad.