Louis-Philippe de Grandpré

Louis-Philippe de Grandpré, CC, GOQ, QC (February 6, 1917 – January 24, 2008) was a Canadian lawyer and Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Born in Montreal, Quebec to Roland de Grandpré and Aline Magnan, he studied at McGill University and received a BCL in 1938. He practised law in Montreal from 1938 and, about eight years after his call to the bar, he co-founded the firm of Tansey, de Grandpré et de Grandpré.^[1]

De Grandpré was diagnosed with syringomyelia when he was 29, and from then on he was virtually paralyzed on the right side of his body.^[1]

From 1972 to 1973, he was president of the Canadian Bar Association, where he took a position opposing state-controlled legal aid plans.^[1]

He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on January 1, 1974. de Grandpré was the subject of controversy that year when objections were raised to him hearing the case Morgentaler v. R. given his prior personal statements about the issue at a 1973 national meeting of the Canadian Bar Association. In the end, the Chief Justice decided that Mr. Justice de Grandpré could remain on the panel to hear the abortion case.^[2]

By October 1, 1977 he resigned complaining of Chief Justice Bora Laskin's style of running the Court and the direction it was taking on many constitutional matters. In an interview near the end of his life, he said he found the work on the Court dead boring.^[1]

After leaving the bench, de Grandpré returned to the practice of law at the firm of Lafleur, Brown, de Grandpré (which later became Gowling Lafleur Henderson),^[3] and was seen as a mentor by many lawyers. In 1985, de Grandpré authored a report on judicial independence for the Canadian Bar Association.

In 1971 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1998 he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec.

He died on January 24, 2008 in Saint-Lambert, leaving behind his wife, four children, eleven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and a brother. The funeral service was held at St-Viateur Church in Outremont.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Philip Fine (2008-03-01). "Fearless lawyer stepped off the highest of benches". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 2008-03-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20080304215413/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080301.OBGRANDPRE01/BDAStory/BDA/deaths. Retrieved 2008-03-01. 
2. ^ Speech of The Honourable Maryka Omatsu, "The Fiction of Judicial Impartiality", The University of Victoria Lansdowne Lecture, 1997. Reprinted in CJWL/RFD, Vol. 9.
3. ^ Faculty of Law of McGill University, "The Faculty mourns the Hon. Louis-Philippe de Grandpré", retrieved June 12, 2011.

• "The Honourable Mr. Justice Louis-Philippe de Grandpré". Supreme Court of Canada. http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/court-cour/ju/grandpre/index-eng.asp. Retrieved September 15, 2008. 

External links

• Obituary
• Globe and Mail obituary