March 4, 1982 - Bertha Wilson - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Bertha Wilson becomes first woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. Bertha Wilson was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1923 and earned an MA and teaching diploma from the University of Aberdeen before emigrating to Canada with her husband in 1949. Her desire to attend Dalhousie Law School in Halifax in 1954 was not met with open arms from the dean, Horace E. Read, who told her, “Madam, we have no room here for dilettantes. Why don’t you just go home and take up crocheting?” She persevered, got in and graduated. In 1959, the young lawyer moved to Ontario, where she worked with the Toronto firm of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt. Appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1975, she earned acclaim for decisions on sexual discrimination and human rights. On March 4, 1982 – the same year Canada’s constitution adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Wilson to the Supreme Court of Canada. Men in the legal profession, including Chief Justice Bora Laskin, suggested to the prime minister that there were men more deserving who should be sitting on the top bench. However, as the first woman, Wilson made her mark by writing decisions that highlighted the importance of respecting and accommodating the rights of Canadian minorities. Wilson will also be remembered as the judge who wrote the decision to strike down Canada’s abortion laws in the criminal code. While she retired from the Supreme Court in 1991 at the age of 67, eight years before legally required, her involvement in and around the law continued with work affecting aboriginal people, as well as women in the law. In 1992 she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. Wilson died in Ottawa on April 28, 2007 at the age of 83.

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