Michelle O’Bonsawin, new Supreme Court judge, faces spotlight as major cases on Indigenous autonomy loom

Two major cases on Indigenous law are coming before the Supreme Court of Canada as it prepares to welcome its first Indigenous member, Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin.

Supreme Court judges are expected to be generalists with some areas of specialized expertise. “I’m a judge first and an Indigenous person and a mother and a Franco-Ontarian afterward,” Justice O’Bonsawin said when asked how her appointment would promote Indigenous law during her two-hour parliamentary nomination hearing last month.

Jason Madden, a Métis lawyer, says the two cases, taken together, will force the court to address the role of Indigenous laws and legal orders that pre-exist the writing of Canada’s founding 1867 Constitution, which divided powers between Ottawa and the provinces. Justice O’Bonsawin was a member of the Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa for the past five years. No other Supreme Court judge chosen from the lower courts in the Charter era that began in 1982 was appointed without appeal-court experience. But not every appointee had been a judge. Three were named straight from private practice, and were considered leaders in the profession: Justice Suzanne Côté of the current court, John Sopinka and Ian Binnie.

Jim Phillips, a professor of law and history at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, said Justice O’Bonsawin’s legal background adds to the court’s diversity.

This is why a native activist was put there. Lets not kid ourselves

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