FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 19, 2003
MONTREAL – The Canadian Bar Association is proud to name the Honourable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, of Quebec City, as the 2003 recipient of the Touchstones Award.
“The Honourable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé is respected as one of Canada’s – and indeed the world’s – foremost activists in defending human rights,” says CBA President Simon Potter of Montreal. “In keeping with her work in this field and on the Supreme Court of Canada, there is perhaps no more fitting recipient for the Touchstones Award.”
The Honourable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé served on the Supreme Court of Canada between 1987 and 2002 and remains today one of this country’s foremost activists in promoting human rights through equality. Her judgments endorsed and defended equality rights and spanned many areas of law, from family law to civil law to employment, taxation, tort and criminal law. Throughout her career, she was steadfast in her protection of women, children, Aboriginal people, people of colour and other disadvantaged groups in society.
First appointed to the Bench in 1973 as a Quebec Superior Court judge, the Honourable Madame L’Heureux-Dubé was appointed shortly thereafter to chair a Royal Commission into allegations of sexual exploitation of immigrant women by immigration officers. Her recommendations were accepted in full by the federal government. In 1979, she became the first woman appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal and eight years later, she was the first woman from Quebec appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
She received a LL.L cum laude from Laval University in 1951 with special awards in Civil Law and Labour Law. During her career in private practice between 1952 and 1973, the Honourable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé served as partner of the firm Bard, L’Heureux & Philippon and later senior partner with L’Heureux, Philippon, Garneau, Tourigny, St-Arnaud & Associates.
The Touchstones Award celebrates the accomplishments of an individual who has excelled in promoting equality in the legal profession, the judiciary, or the legal community in Canada. The award recognizes significant national initiative to advance equality and/or contribution relating to race, disability, sexual orientation or other diversity issues in the community.
The Standing Committee on Equality will present the award at the Touchstones Reception held as part of the Canadian Legal Conference in Montreal on Tuesday, Aug. 19 at 4:30 p.m. in the Les Courants room of the Delta Centre-Ville. The event is open to accredited journalists who have registered with the CBA Media Centre.
The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 38,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.
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CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Aug. 15-19, CBA Media Centre, Palais des congrès, Room 523B, (514) 871-5823.
