OTTAWA—The Ottawa Citizen reports today that the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) aboriginal law section is encouraging Prime Minister Paul Martin to appoint at least one native Canadian to fill one of the openings on the Supreme Court left by the June retirement of Justice Frank Iacobucci and the resignation of Justice Louise Arbour to become the United Nation’s human rights commissioner. This push could result in Ontario judge Harry LaForme, author of the Ontario Superior Court’s 2003 same-sex “marriage” decision, being promoted to the top court in the country. The CBA notes that the First Nations are one of three “founding partners” in Canada but the only one that by custom does not have guaranteed representation on the Supreme Court. English and French Canadians are assumed to have certain places reserved for them on the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Harris, a Winnipeg lawyer who chairs the aboriginal law section of the CBA said “Ultimately we hope that aboriginal people are represented on the court, whether it’s one, two, or three.”
Critics say that setting aside positions based on race would create a precedent in which other minority groups will demand representation. A paper prepared by the CBA claims that aboriginals are distinct because of the need to recognize laws and customs as “living laws.”
Earlier this year, Ontario’s largest aboriginal group, the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians wrote to the prime minister, urging him to appoint Justice Harry LaForme to Canada’s top court. Ottawa Citizen reporter Janice Tibbets said that among LaForme’s “credentials” is his “authoring the first ruling in the country that allowed gay marriage.” After the decision, REAL Women exposed the fact that the homosexualist website equalmarriage.ca displayed photographs of Justice LaForme at an Ontario Law Society event celebrating the judicial redefining of marriage to include homosexuals. He is seen in one photograph in the arms of Kevin Bourrassa and Joe Varnell, the litigants who brought the case before the courts in the first place. Toronto Liberal MP Derek Lee, chairman of the Commons justice committee in the previous Parliament, told the Citizen that appointments to the Supreme Court should be made according to the competence of a particular individual and not one’s ethnicity, but didn’t comment specifically about any potential candidates for the Supreme Court. For REAL Women’s coverage of the Ontario Law Society event showing homosexual activists and members of the judicial elite, including Justice Harry LaForme, celebrating the Superior Court’s decision, see: https://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2003_july_aug/article_4.html
pt