The Faculty of Law joins the whole legal community in mourning the death of Gerald Le Dain

Former Supreme Court Justice Gerald Le Dain died Tuesday, December 18, 2007, in Toronto, at the age of 83.

After serving with the Canadian Army in World War II from 1943 to 1946, Gerald Le Dain, a native of Montreal, obtained a BCL degree from McGill University, winning the Gold Medal. He pursued his studies in France, obtaining a Docteur de l'Université from the Université de Lyon. He was called to the Bar of Quebec in 1949 and became a QC in 1961. During the 1950s and 1960s, Gerald Le Dain practised law in Montreal. During this period he was a professor of law at McGill University for eight years.

Le Dain taught at Osgoode Hall from 1967 to 1975 and served there as Dean from 1967 to 1972. In that time, he also chaired a landmark commission of inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs in Canada. The Le Dain Commission's report recommended marijuana be removed from the Narcotic Control Act and that the provinces control possession and cultivation, similar to government controls on the use of alcohol.

A Judge of the Federal Court of Appeal from 1975 to 1984, he was then elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada, where he served until his retirement in 1988. He wrote numerous leading judgments, particularly in the public law area, that are still widely referred to today. In 1985, he was granted an honorary Doctor of Law by McGill University and in 1989 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

His funeral was on December 28 in Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa.

Professor Richard Janda, who clerked for Justice Le Dain, along with two other Le Dain clerks, Professors Bruce Ryder (Osgoode Hall) and Rosemary Cairns Way (University of Ottawa), shared some thoughts on their former mentor at his funeral, after remarks by Emeritus Professor Harry Arthurs (Osgoode Hall).