Trudeau to name new Supreme Court judge, maintaining gender split

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will appoint a new justice to the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday, and an insider says it will be a female jurist.

The appointment ensures that the top court will maintain a gender split with at least four women on the nine-member bench.

Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin retires on Dec. 15. Wednesday's announcement will not name a new chief justice.

Trudeau's Supreme Court pick tangled in race, gender politics

Sources would not name the new justice, but said she is among three candidates on a list provided by an independent committee headed by former prime minister Kim Campbell.

They are Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Sheilah Martin, Saskatchewan Court of Appeal Justice Georgina Jackson, and Justice Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, British Columbia's former representative for children and youth, who is Indigenous.

Mr. Trudeau has made gender equality a priority. His cabinet has 50/50 gender split, and his government's judicial appointments have been about 50/50. He has also stressed reconciliation with Indigenous people.

In its first set of judicial appointments last June, the Liberal government elevated Justice Martin to the Alberta Court of Appeal from the Court of Queen's Bench.

A bilingual former law dean at the University of Calgary, she has been at the forefront of women's issues. She helped develop legal arguments for the advocacy group Women's Legal Education and Action Fund in more than two dozen test cases.

Justice Martin also has a background in Quebec's civil code, having studied it while doing a law degree at McGill University. Born in 1957, she would have 15 years before mandatory retirement.

If Mr. Trudeau chooses Justice Martin, the Supreme Court would have two judges from Alberta. (Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown, although born and raised in B.C., was an Alberta judge before joining the court.)

Justice Jackson would be the first Supreme Court judge from Saskatchewan since Emmett Hall, who served from 1962-73.

The bilingual Justice Jackson has been on the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal for a quarter-century. She was an appointee of Brian Mulroney's government. A former business lawyer, she has been a leader in judicial education in Canada and abroad. She is in her mid-60s.

Justice Turpel-Lafond has been a constitutional adviser to the Assembly of First Nations, a Provincial Court judge in Saskatchewan (from which she has been on leave for more than a decade) and an outspoken advocate for children and youth.

The Prime Minister has been under pressure to name the first Indigenous judges to the high court, but Justice Turpel-Lafond's long absence from the bench may have hurt her chances for the vacant Supreme Court seat.