The CBA held its 99th annual meeting on Thursday, Aug. 17 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, 121 years after a group of lawyers from across the country gathered in that city to lay the foundation of a national association for the legal profession.
In 1896 a circular was sent across the country and lawyers travelled long hours to get there. This year, lawyers travelled to Montreal, but more participated via teleconference from the comfort of hubs in 18 CBA branches and law offices across the country.
On paper it looked like a normal 2 1/2 –hour business meeting.
But for the CBA it was the culmination of a months-long, coast-to-coast effort by volunteers and staff that was essentially a reinvention of the way the Association does business.
In all, more than 200 members took part in the meeting, with 81 on-site in Montreal at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth – the hotel where, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famous bed-in for peace. Another 141 were spread out among the 18 hubs. Quorum for the meeting was 100.
Scrutineers in each hub made sure that registered voters were signed in, counted votes and delivered their counts by email, text and phone to staff on-site in Montreal, who added it to a tally there. It was a bit more time-consuming than the voting-card method traditionally used at CBA Council, but everyone treated the delays with good humour. “If you think this has been chaotic, you should have seen the dress rehearsal,” said Martin Sheehan, Chair of the Resolutions, Constitution and Bylaw Committee.
While three resolutions were presented for discussion, members were advised beforehand that there was a good chance only one would be debated and that turned out to be the case. But it was a doozy of a resolution – to adopt a new set of bylaws governing the CBA. The result of months of work by lawyers from Gowlings, the GTTF Bylaws Task Force and Tamra Thomson, Director of Legislation and Law Reform, the bylaws were more than 36,000 words long – that’s about a word for every member.
There was debate on two specific areas of the new bylaws: quorum and diversity. An amendment which called for section 14 (2), which allows, once quorum has been established, for decisions to be made later in a meeting to be valid even if quorum no longer exists, to be struck. That amendment was defeated. Another amendment, calling for a definition of diversity to be added to the bylaw, was tabled.
The other two resolutions, one calling for a National Commissioner for Children and Youth, and another denouncing violence against gay and bisexual men in Chechnya, were put off until the next annual meeting, which outgoing President René Basque announced would be held in February.
B.C. member Preston Parsons, the incoming Chair of the Young Lawyers Section, and CBABC Executive Director Caroline Nevin pinned the chain of office on incoming President Kerry Simmons. (See elsewhere in this newsletter for text of her speech, and watch her interview with CBA National Magazine here). Kerry introduced the incoming board members as part of her presentation; they’ll officially start work on Sept. 1.
Historically the August CBA Legal Conference has been preceded by a number of administrative meetings, committee meetings, and of course the meeting of CBA Council. This year’s annual meeting was no exception. But as the usual day-long Council meeting was compressed into just a few hours this year, there were fewer speeches and presentations – and all were much shorter. As well, some bits of protocol that traditionally would have taken place at the CBA Legal Conference, such as the presentation of the Rosewater Bowl to the outgoing president, were moved to the President’s Dinner.
In honour of the 150th anniversary of Confederation, this year 150 guests were welcomed at the President’s Dinner, a capacity crowd, with many more on a waiting list for the event. (See elsewhere in this newsletter for information about winners of the Walter Owen Book Prize and the President’s Award, which were presented at the dinner.)
See the CBA flikr site for pictures.