Justice Sheilah Martin
Sheilah Martin’s impressive resume just became a little thicker.
The judge, author and academic was recently nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada, filling the vacancy left by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who retired Dec. 15.
Martin, born and raised in Montreal, attended McGill University and the University of Alberta, where she was trained in both civil and common law. She was a researcher and law professor at the University of Calgary in the early 1980s before being called to the Alberta bar in 1989; from 1991 to 1996, she was acting dean and then dean of the U of C’s Faculty of Law.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described her as “an extraordinary jurist” with a wealth of experience who will be “a great voice on the Supreme Court.”
Martin, 60, wrote in her Supreme Court candidacy submission: “While my commitment to fairness and equal justice for all spans and unites my entire career, my most significant contribution has been to education, richly defined. My guiding desire has been to use what I have learned to help others gain a greater understanding of the law, its purpose, role and promise.”
In a display of her sense of humour, during a question-and-answer session with a panel of MPs and senators, she said she hoped her legacy will be remembered by three things: “That I listened carefully, that I was a deep thinker and that I had really nice hair.”
From 1996 to 2005, Martin practised criminal and constitutional litigation in Calgary and was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench in 2005, where she served until 2016. At that point, she was appointed as judge for the Courts of Appeal of Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
“I think judges need to show respect to get respect,” Martin, a mother of seven children, told the parliamentarians. “And it has been my personal goal to be respectful in court and to listen patiently and to let things unfold.”