WHAT WAS YOUR PATH INTO LAW AND ONTO THE BENCH?

No one in my family was in law, I had no friends at that time that were in law, and no friends of my parents were in law. In fact, when I was in high school and in CEGEP, my focus was pure sciences because it was in that field that I was performing really well. Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, all those subjects were really easy for me, while French, English, Philosophy and Arts were not. So when I decided to do my Bcom, my goal was to become an accountant. I decided to go to McGill because my English was not that good, and I knew I had to be functionally bilingual. But after one year at McGill, I realized I didn’t enjoy studying accounting, so I decided to change course and do my second and third year in Organizational Behaviour and Industrial Relations—and I really enjoyed it!

During my third year, I attended a Labour Law lecture given by Roy Heenan from Heenan Blaikie. He was such a great professor. I remember that after one lecture, I went to see him and told him I intended to practice in Industrial Relations and that I was very interested in his lectures. I then asked him if he thought it would be a good idea to pursue a law degree, and he said, “Yes, do it.” He pointed out that a lot of VPs of Industrial Relations and Human Resources in companies had a law degree, and even if I didn’t end up practicing in that field it would be very helpful. That’s why I decided to study law after my two bachelor’s degrees. But in my mind, it was not to practice as a lawyer, it was to practice in Human Resources or Industrial Relations.

During law school, I worked with various law professors. One of them gave my name to Ogilvy Renault, now known as Norton Rose, and they called me for an interview, but I was confident enough to say no to their offer because I had been offered another job for the summer. It was a fantastic program that existed at that time, a program supported by the Law Reform Commission, and they were asking one law student from every university across Canada to move to Ottawa for the summer. We all worked together on various programs of the Law Reform Commission and I made many good friends. I said no to Ogilvy Renault, but I told them I would be ready to join them in my third year, and I did. They eventually made me an offer to work in the Labour Law department. Although I always wanted to practice in the union side, I ended up on the employer side. I stayed at Ogilvy Renault for 23 years and really enjoyed what I was doing.

I started thinking about joining the bench after a discussion I had with an arbitrator before whom I was pleading on a regular basis. At one point, he told me he was planning for his retirement and wanted to support me as a new arbitrator if I wanted to become one. What is difficult when you are in Labour Law and you want to become an arbitrator is that there is an initial one-year period when there is no money coming in, so it’s not that easy for someone to make that transition. In order to help me through that transition, he was willing to take me under his wing. It was an amazing offer, and this arbitrator was fantastic, but I finally said no to that offer because I thought the job would be a little too isolating for me. However, the idea of being in a position where I could make decisions always remained at the back of my mind.

Then one day, my very good friend at Ogilvy Renault decided to leave the firm to go in-house, so at that point, I started to tell myself that it was time for me to go. I was 48 years old, everything was going well in my practice, I had good clients, I had good billings, I had been appointed to the Executive Committee at the firm and there weren’t many women on the Executive Committee at that time, but I thought it was time for me to go. Not because I didn’t like my job—I really liked my job—but because I told myself that the first 23 years of my professional life were so exciting, and I want the next 15, 16 or 17 years of my professional life to be just as exciting. Finally, I applied to sit on the Superior Court and I was lucky to be appointed in 2009, lucky because I was practicing Labour Law and I was not known in the judiciary community. It’s now been 13 years and it went so fast. It’s amazing how time flies!

WHAT EXPERIENCE IN YOUR LEGAL CAREER BEST PREPARED YOU FOR YOUR WORK ON THE BENCH?

I always mention that, for me, it wasn’t a learning curve, it was a learning wall. I was familiar and comfortable with everything to do with judicial review, and I was quite familiar with le débat contradictoire and the evidence rules. On the other hand, I was not familiar with the provisions of the Civil Code of Quebec and the Code of Civil Procedure. My first two years and half were quite intense, but I read a lot. I was ready to learn and ready to make sure that parties appearing before me would not be prejudiced by the fact that they were appearing before a labour lawyer rather than a litigation lawyer. But I must say that, at least in Montreal, the majority of judges coming from private practice specialised in a specific field, so my experience was no different from that of so many colleagues of mine. By contrast, when I was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2013, it wasn’t a learning curve, it was a learning job. Even today, I am in that same position. It will be ten years next year and I am still learning, and that’s what is amazing about the Court of Appeal.

The fact that I negotiated collective agreements and that I practiced Labour Law are two key elements that really prepared me for the work on the bench. With negotiation, you have to really listen to what the other party is saying if you want to find a solution that your client will be ready to accept. You have to go behind what is verbally said and try to understand what’s the problem behind the complaint that you are hearing on that day. That’s an experience that really helped me on the bench—to not just listen passively but also actively in order to understand what is really going on. The second point is the fact that I practiced Labour Law. I would say to my colleagues in the litigation department, “You are always fighting.” Although I was pleading on a regular basis, I couldn’t possibly fight with my opponents all the time. When I was pleading on grievances, the opposing party was the union. I would make sure I got my client’s point of view favoured by the arbitrator, but always in a respectful way for the opposing party because I was aware that when I was leaving the hearing room, my client was going back to the plant with the union president and all the employees. He had to work with them on a daily basis. That made me understand my work as a lawyer clearly. Practicing Labour Law helped me realize how far I can go when arguing a case, and when I was hearing a Family Law case, I would always keep that in mind.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR COUNSEL WHO APPEAR BEFORE YOU?

It may be something that you hear from all the other judges, but it’s worth repeating. The person who was in charge of the Labour Law department at Ogilvy Renault said to me when I joined the group, “Manon, in life, you only have your word, so make sure you always keep your word.” It goes with what I would call integrity. If you want to be respected by your colleagues within the firm, colleagues in your practice, if you want to be respected by the bench, integrity is certainly the advice that I would give to counsel. You have to realize that the person you are speaking with is usually as intelligent as you are, so don’t fool around. If there is something that you don’t like in your file but it’s there, think about it before going into the courtroom and try to convince the bench on how to deal with it. Yes, it is there, but it is not determinative. Yes, it is there, but the decision that is not in your client’s favour can be distinguished on its facts. Keeping my word is definitely what helped me the most in Labour Law, especially in my negotiations with the unions.

Moreover, if you want to do a good job, you have to be happy where you are, so make the choice that goes with your personality. And if you are happy with what you are doing, you will most probably do a good job.

WHAT DO YOU WISH THE PUBLIC KNEW ABOUT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM?

The quality of the members of the judiciary is really something that the public should know about. We are fortunate to have a legal system in Canada with such a good judiciary that is impartial and independent. Even though it sounds classic, I strongly believe in it, and I am in a position to see the dedication of all members of the bench to the parties and how hard they are willing to work to make sure that parties are heard. I think I should also mention that I was appointed in June 2020 and we all worked very closely during that crisis. I can tell you that the entire bench—the Superior Court, the Court of Quebec and the Court of Appeal—was ready to move, to improve its processes, to do things differently. We have a very high-quality bench, one that is ready to improve the way we work. But it doesn’t mean we have to do it very quickly. There are fundamental values that we have to make sure we maintain, but we are ready to change and we are not stuck in the way we do things.