Bertha Wilson

Bertha Wilson
58th Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
In office March 4, 1982 – January 4, 1991
Nominated by	Pierre Trudeau
Preceded by	Ronald Martland
Succeeded by	Frank Iacobucci
Personal details
Born	Bertha Wernham September 18, 1923 Kirkcaldy, Scotland, U.K.
Died	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Spouse(s)	Rev. John Wilson
Alma mater	Dalhousie Law School

Bertha Wrenham Wilson, CC (September 18, 1923 – April 28, 2007) was a Canadian jurist and the first female Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Early life

Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, the daughter of Archibald Wernham and Christina Noble, she received a Master of Arts degree in philosophy from University of Aberdeen in 1944. In 1949, Wilson emigrated to Canada with her husband, the Reverend John Wilson, whom she had married in 1945. They settled in Renfrew, Ontario where her husband became the United Church minister. Three years later, in 1952, her husband became a naval chaplain during the Korean War and she worked as a dental receptionist in Ottawa. In 1954, her husband was posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia and they both moved.

Professional career

She received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Dalhousie University and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1957. She moved to Toronto in 1959, was called to the Ontario Bar and joined the firm of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. She became a partner in 1968.

She was the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 1975. In 1982, she became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, by Pierre Trudeau. Wilson retired from the court in 1991 and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada that same year.

Wilson's Supreme Court rulings include: R. v. Morgentaler in 1988 (abortion procedures), R. v Lavallée in 1990 (battered-wife syndrome as self-defence), Operation Dismantle v. The Queen in 1985 (judicial review), the minority decision in R. v. Stevens (1988) which was adopted later in R. v. Hess; R. v. Nguyen in 1990 (mens rea and statutory rape), Kosmopolous v. Constitution Insurance Co. of Canada (piercing "corporate veil"), the dissenting opinion in McKinney v. University of Guelph in 1990 (mandatory retirement), Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia in 1989 (equality rights test), and Sobeys Stores v. Yeomans and Labour Standards Tribunal (NS) in 1989 (interpretative authority of tribunals), among many other foundational cases interpreting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was enacted the year she was appointed to the Supreme Court.

From 1991 to 1996, she was a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Bertha Wilson gave a controversial and much-discussed speech about the role and influence of women in legal professions and the judiciary titled “Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?”

Wilson died in an Ottawa retirement home on April 28, 2007 of an unspecified "prolonged illness" which some sources claim was Alzheimer's disease.

See also

• List of decisions by Justice Wilson

External links

• Bertha Wilson at Find a Grave
• Supreme Court of Canada biography
• First female Supreme Court judge dies at age 83
• Bertha Wilson (September 18, 1923 - April 28, 2007) - obituary on Cerberus with additional links