|
Judge
Mary Ellen Turpel_Lafond |
Harry LaForme
- Racism haunts Canada's first aboriginal
appellate judge
- 'You never get rid
of that feeling,' says new member of Ontario Court of Appeal
By KIRK MAKIN, JUSTICE
REPORTER, Globe and Mail, Nov 23, 2004
As a rookie lawyer, Harry LaForme
was often drawn to the window of his 67th-floor office in a powerhouse
Bay Street firm, an impossibly lofty aerie for one of the first
aboriginal lawyers in the country.
On a clear day, the young lawyer
could make out the distant reserve where he had grown up, sleeping
on straw in a converted granary with no power or running water.
"I thought I was going
to be a big corporate-commercial lawyer and make tons of money,"
Mr. Justice LaForme recalled yesterday, shortly after being appointed
to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the first aboriginal appellate
judge in Canadian history.
But something felt very wrong.
"The more I looked, the more I realized that I wasn't doing
what I needed to do," he said. "I needed to establish
an aboriginal law practice."
Judge LaForme quit the corporate
firm in 1980. He opened a practice to service the dispossessed
group into which he had been born on Oct. 31, 1946. Twenty-five
years later, he is determined to bring his painful awareness
of racism into a justice system that still has a long way to
go.
"People will be shocked
if there is another incident like Oka," Judge LaForme said,
referring to a standoff in 1990 when Mohawk Warriors shot and
killed a police officer.
"But you speak to aboriginal
people across the country, and they will tell you that there
will be," he said.
Aboriginal people are imprisoned
far too often, Judge LaForme said, and incidents such as the
lonely 1990 death of Saskatchewan native Neil Stonechild -- thought
to have been abandoned by police on a frigid night -- highlight
the racism that still exists in Canadian society.
"When I see these kind
of examples, I hurt for a long time," he said. "I just
wonder how people look at me personally. How do they look at
my son and my daughters? It is so sinister, and the worst kind
of racism, the kind you can't see and you can't tell is there.
It reminds me that it is still there."
A member of the Mississaugas
of New Credit First Nation, Judge LaForme said that sentencing
practices reveal persistent misunderstandings of aboriginal history.
"We have a deeply, deeply entrenched history of punishing
in certain ways, and it doesn't always work."
Judge LaForme's father was
a labourer who took any work he could get, whether it was berry-picking,
hunting or trapping, to provide for his wife and their three
sons and two daughters. He eventually got a job at General Motors
in Buffalo, N.Y. The family spent years commuting: weekends on
the reserve and weekdays in a Buffalo slum.
Judge LaForme was increasingly
drawn to the growing aboriginal movement. "I was a very,
very angry person until my early 20s," he said.
"I was angry about being
an Indian. I thought it was very unfair. It was like I had been
dealt some pretty nasty cards. When you are a child, you think
there must be something wrong with you if people constantly pick
on you for being what you are."
It gradually dawned on him
that aboriginals needed solid role models who could influence
a legal system that was to become a battleground for land claims,
aboriginal self-government and equal rights.
Entering Osgoode Hall law school
at 27, he felt that he didn't belong, a feeling that persisted
in practice. "It was like you weren't a real lawyer,"
Judge LaForme said. "You had to convince even your own aboriginal
clients that you were a real lawyer.
"After all those years
of being told you are a second-class citizen, you never get rid
of that feeling of inadequacy. I've never gotten over it. Even
in court, you feel that you are the stupidest person in the courtroom."
And in the Court of Appeal?
"I will still have to fight those feelings," Judge
LaForme said. "I've accepted that this will always be the
case."
Judge LaForme said he is apprehensive
about speaking out on aboriginal issues because judges must remain
above the fray, yet he felt compelled to do so.
"I was reluctant to talk
to you [in this interview], but my wife said: 'If this is such
an important cause, how can you say nothing about it?' "
he said. "People have to understand where we are as a society."
Madam Justice Jean MacFarland
of Ontario Superior Court was also named to the Court of Appeal.
Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler called Judge LaForme's
appointment a historic event."
"It was a big one for
me," Mr. Cotler said in an interview. "This is the
new Canada, and the legal system and the judiciary have to reflect
this new Canada. Reconciliation, redress, respect: These things
the aboriginal people can see in this appointment."
Judge LaForme agreed. "We
were the first people of this country, but we have never occupied
these places. These are important moments in the history of Canada.
"Aboriginal people have
to ultimately be recognized for their rightful place in Canada.
Some day, I hope an aboriginal person will be prime minister.
Some day, I hope an aboriginal person will be a premier of a
province."
Harry LaForme
(LLB '77) Appointed to Ontario Court of Appeal
- 2 appeal court judges
appointed;
- Harry LaForme is first
aboriginal appointee Jean MacFarland also goes to appellate bench
Tracey Tyler, The Toronto
Star, 20 Nov 2004
Harry LaForme thought a good
way to represent the interests and concerns of First Nations
people was to go to law school. Thirty years later, he's making
history as the first aboriginal person appointed to a Canadian
appellate court.
LaForme, who broke new ground
by ruling in favour of legalizing same-sex marriage in 2002,
and Justice Jean MacFarland, who has made headlines with powerful
rulings in cases involving sexism and violence against women,
notably the 1998 "Jane Doe" decision, were appointed
to the Ontario Court of Appeal yesterday by Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler.
"It's awesome," LaForme
said last night.
He said his first impression
from a telephone conversation with Cotler is how "truly"
the justice minister believes in ensuring the judiciary reflects
Canadian society and, in particular, that there is an aboriginal
presence on the country's highest courts.
"I always believed that
time would come," he said in an interview. "I just
didn't know it would be me."
Both judges fill vacancies
left by Justices Rosalie Abella and Louise Charron, who were
recently appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
LaForme is a former Ontario
Indian Commissioner and chief commissioner of the federal Indian
Land Claims Commission. He is also a member of the Mississaugas
of New Credit First Nation, which surrendered 630 square kilometres
of what is now Toronto in 1787 and is negotiating a land claim
with the federal government.
His early years were spent
on a reserve in Hagersville, where his father, Maurice, and grandfather
Sylvester, known as "Big Pat," were chiefs. LaForme's
older brother, Bryan, holds that position today.
When they were teenagers, Bryan
LaForme said, their father couldn't find work so the brothers,
along with their parents and three other siblings, moved to Buffalo,
where young Harry, who "loves" basketball, "took
a bunch of Indian kids off the street and won a championship
with them." He also went to technical school and became
an engineer.
Years later, he thought he'd
try Osgoode Hall law school.
"He'd seen all the injustice
that was taking place with First Nations people across the country
and he felt he could play a role in helping with that - not in
the sense that he was going to cure all the ills of our society,
but that he could have an impact in some way, shape or form and
also make sure they had a fair shake in the judicial system,"
said the elder LaForme.
In 1994, LaForme was appointed
to the Ontario Court, general division.
Justice LaForme's wife, Janice,
said her husband "loved" being a trial judge. "And
I wonder a little bit if he's going to miss that life,"
she said. "He loves the social interaction and, as much
as a judge is able to, he really enjoys contact with lawyers.
He loves juries - the dynamics of a jury trial."
At the same time, he will go
to the appeal court with "a tremendous feeling of responsibility;
sort of 'in awe' of what he's taken on."
Cotler has made clear he wants
an aboriginal person on the Supreme Court of Canada. If a First
Nations lawyer from another province is not appointed, LaForme
will be seen as a front-runner the next time an Ontario seat
on the court opens up. The next Ontario judge scheduled to retire
is Justice Ian Binnie in 2014.
Two years ago, LaForme was
a member of a Divisional Court panel that found denying same-sex
couples the right to marry violated their equality rights. The
court split on the issue of remedy, with LaForme taking the boldest
approach, reformulating the common law definition of marriage.
A year later, the Ontario Court of Appeal thought that was precisely
the right thing to do and legalized gay and lesbian marriage
province-wide.
Hours after that decision,
when the first same-sex marriage was performed in the University
Ave. courthouse, LaForme slipped quietly into the back of the
room to watch.
Justices LaForme and MacFarland
were both born in 1946 - he on Halloween; she on Remembrance
Day, in Kingston. Her appointment brings to seven the number
of women on the 23-member appeal court.
In her 17 years as a trial
judge, MacFarland had many controversial and colourful cases.
In 1998, she found Toronto police negligent in failing to warn
women about a balcony rapist in a downtown neighbourhood.
Police had a "stereotypical"
belief the plaintiff, "Jane Doe," would become hysterical
and scare off the attacker, she said.
Earlier this year, she threw
out a $55 million libel suit brought against the heirs of Lucy
Maud Montgomery by Sullivan Entertainment, producer of two television
movies based on Anne of Green Gables.
In 1993, she presided at an
inquiry into the conduct of "kissing judge" Walter
Hryciuk.
One of her last duties as a
trial judge will be deciding whether African Lion Safari is to
blame for injuries suffered by an exotic dancer and her boyfriend
when a tiger jumped into their car at the game park in 1996.
One of LaForme's last will
be sentencing Douglas Brown, a former teacher at Upper Canada
College, who was convicted of nine counts of indecently assaulting
students 30 years ago.
Cotler also announced two appointments
yesterday to the Superior Court of Justice. John McMahon, a former
Toronto crown attorney, replaces MacFarland. Alison Harvison
Young, dean of law at Queen's University, replaces LaForme.
- Harry LaForme
You Be The Judge
-
- from York University Alumni
magazine, August, 2000
For all of Justice Harry LaForme's
legal controversy he holds a deep respect for Canadian law. "I
think it's one of the best in the world," he says.
LaForme [LLB '77] was appointed
to Ontario's Superior Court in 1994, and is one of only three
aboriginal, federally-appointed judges in Canada.
"I was a very fortunate
guy," says the 53-year-old LaForme. When he entered Osgoode
to pursue a legal degree in the late '70s, there were very few
aboriginal students in universities. Only five aboriginal lawyers
existed across the nation. Courses on native rights were almost
non-existent. Today, there are bookshelves of literature on aboriginal
rights, and many law firms specializing in aboriginal rights
and issues.
Growing up in Buffalo, New
York, away from his Ontario reserve because of his father's work,
the Mississaugas of New Credit member still remembers the ridicule
and racism directed towards native peoples. And it wasn't until
coaching his little brother's basketball team - made up of inner
city aboriginal youths - that he found a way to focus his anger.
"The kids were so resilient to the ridicule because they
had each other ... they were proud of who they were."
Before being named a judge,
LaForme was sitting in a different courtroom. From 1992 to 1994
he served as chief commissioner on the Federal Indian Claims
Commission, overseeing Canada-wide land disputes. The position
came on the heels of a controversial report he supervised and
edited on federal land claims policy which accused Ottawa of
being unjust for its arbitrary power over the fate of aboriginal
land.
LaForme has told reporters
he is "a red man dispensing white man's justice." That
justice shows its face in unlikely places. He shocked the courtroom
last May by exempting a Toronto man dying of AIDS from criminal
charges for using marijuana as medical treatment. The year before,
he chose not to declare a violent bank robber - with nearly 200
convictions - a dangerous offender, avoiding an indefinite prison
sentence for the man.
Oh dear. The Real women will
not be happy with this appointment.--webmaster Sheila Steele
Push for aboriginal judge
could land pro gay "marriage" judge on Supreme Court
LifeSiteNews.com, August
5, 2004
OTTAWA -- The Ottawa Citizen
reports today that the Canadian Bar Association's (CBA) aboriginal
law section is encouraging Prime Minister Paul Martin to appoint
at least one native Canadian to fill one of the openings on the
Supreme Court left by the June retirement of Justice Frank Iacobucci
and the resignation of Justice Louise Arbour to become the United
Nation's human rights commissioner. This push could result in
Ontario judge Harry LaForme, author of the Ontario Superior Court's
2003 same-sex "marriage" decision, being promoted to
the top court in the country.
The CBA notes that the First
Nations are one of three "founding partners" in Canada
but the only one that by custom does not have guaranteed representation
on the Supreme Court. English and French Canadians are assumed
to have certain places reserved for them on the Supreme Court.
Jeffrey Harris, a Winnipeg lawyer who chairs the aboriginal law
section of the CBA said "Ultimately we hope that aboriginal
people are represented on the court, whether it's one, two, or
three."
Critics say that setting aside
positions based on race would create a precedent in which other
minority groups will demand representation. A paper prepared
by the CBA claims that aboriginals are distinct because of the
need to recognize laws and customs as "living laws."
Earlier this year, Ontario's
largest aboriginal group, the Association of Iroquois and Allied
Indians wrote to the prime minister, urging him to appoint Justice
Harry LaForme to Canada's top court. Ottawa Citizen reporter
Janice Tibbets said that among LaForme's "credentials"
is his "authoring the first ruling in the country that allowed
gay marriage." After the decision, REAL Women exposed the
fact that the homosexualist website equalmarriage.ca displayed
photographs of Justice LaForme at an Ontario Law Society event
celebrating the judicial redefining of marriage to include homosexuals.
He is seen in one photograph in the arms of Kevin Bourrassa and
Joe Varnell, the litigants who brought the case before the courts
in the first place.
Toronto Liberal MP Derek Lee,
chairman of the Commons justice committee in the previous Parliament,
told the Citizen that appointments to the Supreme Court should
be made according to the competence of a particular individual
and not one's ethnicity, but didn't comment specifically about
any potential candidates for the Supreme Court.
For REAL Women's coverage of
the Ontario Law Society event showing homosexual activists and
members of the judicial elite, including Justice Harry LaForme,
celebrating the Superior Court's decision, see:
http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2003_july_au...
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
