Michael Tulloch named as Chief Justice of Ontario

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A judge who urged an end to random police stops and was inspired by the civil rights movement to take up law has become the first Black chief justice of Ontario, and the first of any province.

Michael Tulloch, who emigrated with his family from Jamaica at age 9, was appointed Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. The appeal court is the province’s highest court.

The appointment of the 60-year-old was cheered by members of the Black community.

“It sends a message that if he can, you can too,” Ontario Court Justice Donald McLeod, who is Black and grew up in public housing, said in an interview. Black judges are being “embraced in areas where we were not necessarily seated before.”

Chief Justice Tulloch, an Apostolic minister’s son who was both a prosecutor and a defence lawyer before becoming a judge, led a review of police street checks for the Ontario government in 2018. A subset of those checks, known as carding, involved random stops, disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous and other racialized minorities, by police seeking personal information where no connection to crime is suspected. He said carding has no verifiable benefits and damages police legitimacy.

Chief Justice Tulloch has been deeply involved in the Black community, as a founder of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers and as chair of the advisory board of the Black Business and Professional Association. He helped found Second Chance Scholarship Foundation, which provides assistance to youth who have been in conflict with the law.

But he also participated in a unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal last year that rejected special treatment in the sentencing of Black offenders akin to that received by Indigenous offenders, and stressed the importance of free will, rather than race discrimination, in criminal behaviour. The ruling did, however, allow for sentences other than jail in gun crimes in appropriate cases.

“He’s a caring, balanced, wise, thoughtful person,” Patrick LeSage, a former chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court, said in an interview. Decades ago, when the new chief justice was a young prosecutor, he so impressed Mr. LeSage with his balanced approach and preparation that Mr. LeSage sent a note of praise to the senior Crown.

Frank Walwyn, a Bay Street lawyer and former president of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, said Chief Justice Tulloch has big shoes to fill; his predecessor, George Strathy, was “a true human.” He believes the new chief justice is up to the challenge.

He “truly is connected to the man on the street, to the public, to the real person. He has a broad breadth of experience and relationships … and that is going to make him, I think, a very good Chief Justice.”

Chief Justice Tulloch’s appointment continues a string of firsts for the Prime Minister. On the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Trudeau appointed the first judge from Newfoundland and Labrador, Malcolm Rowe; the first member of a racialized minority, Mahmud Jamal, and the first Indigenous judge, Michelle O’Bonsawin.

But it was his late father Pierre’s political rival, Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, who appointed the first Black chief justice of a federally appointed court. Julius Isaac was chief justice of the Federal Court of Canada from 1991 to 1999. At the time, the court contained two divisions, one for trials and one for appeals. (In 2003, it split into separate courts.)

In choosing Chief Justice Tulloch, the Prime Minister passed up an opportunity to appoint the first female chief justice of Ontario. Leading candidates included Justice Michal Fairburn, the associate chief justice, and Justice Julie Thorburn.

Chief Justice Tulloch’s judicial appointments have been bipartisan: a Liberal government named him to the Ontario Superior Court in 2003, and a Conservative government chose him in 2012 as the first Black member of the Ontario appeal court.

Chief Justice Tulloch, in a public discussion with Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter last year, said he was influenced by the United States civil rights movement, and the ways in which it used the law to make socio-economic improvements to the lives of Black people in that country.

“I didn’t go to law school to make money. I would say I’m very idealistic.”

His heroes were Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the U.S. Supreme Court. In Canada, he said he was inspired by Pierre Trudeau, for initiating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and former prime minister John Diefenbaker, for opening up immigration to people from the Caribbean.

“In a country like Canada, Black people can come from humble beginnings and aspire to great things,” said Denham Jolly, founder of the Black Business and Professional Association.