Bora Laskin

Son of Russian Jewish immigrants in Fort William, Laskin overcame anti-Semitic hiring barriers to become Canada's foremost professor of constitutional and labor law at Osgoode Hall and the University of Toronto. Appointed to the Supreme Court in 1970 by Pierre Trudeau, he was named Chief Justice in 1973.

Laskin was a towering intellectual force who dismantled archaic judicial formalism, modernizing the court into an active guardian of human rights and labor equity. He presided over the historic Patriation Reference of 1981, paving the way for the 1982 Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.