Speaker:

The Hon. Mr. Justice W. Ian Binnie, Supreme Court of Canada

"Counter-Terrorism, Civil Liberties, and the Legacy of F.R. Scott"

Mr. Justice Binnie, B.A., LL.B., LL.M., LL.D., was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on January 8, 1998. Prior to his appointment, he was a senior partner of McCarthy Tétrault from 1986 to 1998, an Associate Deputy Minister of Justice for Canada from 1982 to 1986 and practised litigation in Toronto from 1967 to 1982.

He studied law at the University of Toronto and at Cambridge University (where he was the first Canadian elected President of the Cambridge Union) and was called to the Bar of Ontario, the English Bar and the Bar of the Yukon Territory. From time to time, he received occasional calls to appear in the courts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland. He received Honourary LL.D.s from the Law Society of Upper Canada and from McGill University in 2001. In 1984, Justice Binnie was among counsel for Canada against the United States in the Gulf of Maine dispute before the International Court of Justice, and, after his return to private practice in 1986, against France in the St. Pierre and Miquelon maritime boundary dispute (1991).

He was appointed Special Parliamentary Counsel to the Joint Senate and House of Commons Committee examining the Meech Lake Accord in 1990. He appeared as counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada in many leading constitutional, civil and occasional criminal cases. Early in his career he was engaged as Legal Counsel to the Government of Tanzania. Subsequently, he was an advisor to the Government of Newfoundland respecting constitutional amendments to the Terms of Union. Justice Binnie was elected a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 1992, and is a Member of the Middle Temple Inns of Court (England). In April 2003, he was appointed a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists based in Geneva, Switzerland.