Justice Bertha Wilson

A timely, evocative exploration of Bertha Wilson's life and career.

This timely, evocative book showcases Bertha Wilson’s contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and explores the issues that this controversial personality grappled with in her life and career.

Kim Brooks is an associate professor and the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation in the Faculty of Law at McGill University.

Contributors: Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey, Beverley Baines, Marie-Claire Belleau, Janine Benedet, Susan B. Boyd, Melina Buckley, Rosemary Cairns Way, Gillian Calder, T. Brettel Dawson, Angela Fernandez, Isabel Grant, Rebecca Johnson, Larissa Katz, Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, Moira L. McConnell, Mary Jane Mossman, Shannon O’Byrne, Debra Parkes, Janis Sarra, Beatrice Tice, Lorna Turnbull, and Christina Vinters

Suzanne Bouclin, Faculty of Law, McGill University:
Justice Bertha Wilson is an original contribution ... this collection of essays reminds us that all women constitute themselves within conditions of overt and more ambient gender discrimination. Through the lens of one “extraordinary” woman’s life, this collection contributes to feminist attempts to develop theories that account for women’s capacity for agency, their negotiations, concessions, and transgressions of normative femininity – in short, the relative and shifting constraints and opportunities generated through our interactions with gendered social structures.

Joan Brockman:

The book is an excellent legacy of Madame Justice Bertha Wilson’s life as a lawyer, jurist, role model, and task force chair. Hers was a life that made a difference.

Donna Greschner, Dean of Law, University of Victoria:
A fitting tribute to a remarkable woman and jurist. This collection explores not only her famous Charter and criminal law judgments, but also the rather-neglected commercial law opinions and her legal work before joining the Supreme Court. I commend the book to the many lawyers who knew her and miss her friendship and intellectual engagement, but especially to the readers who know her only through her judicial writing. You will understand both her and the law better after reading these essays.

Margaret Thornton, Professor of Law, Australian National University:
Was Bertha Wilson a feminist judge or not? This and other tantalizing questions are explored in this multifaceted collection devoted to the professional journey of an internationally famous “FW2” (First Woman to...) in the often hostile, masculinist domain of law. The collection enables the reader to acquire an understanding of not only a courageous and compassionate trailblazer and her legacy, but also the organic nature of the nexus between law and social change.