Michelle O'Bonsawin (born May 2, 1974) is a Canadian jurist who is serving as a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada since 2022. Before her appointment to the Supreme Court, she served as a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice from 2017 to 2022. O'Bonsawin is the first Indigenous Canadian to serve as a Supreme Court justice.[4]
In 2017, O'Bonsawin was the first indigenous Canadian to be appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa.[10] She assumed office on May 18, 2017.[11] In her application for the position, she described her legal philosophy as "progressive".[9] Concurrently while working as a judge, O'Bonsawin worked on earning a doctorate in law from the University of Ottawa,[9] and successfully defended her thesis on Gladue principles in February 2022.[12] Her PhD thesis has been embargoed and is not available for public consultation, which has raised concerns and attracted criticism.[13][14]
In 2017, O'Bonsawin was the trial judge for the case CM Callow Inc v Zollinger, which applied the general organizing principle of good faith contractual performance from the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada case Bhasin v Hrynew.[15][16] In 2018, the Court of Appeal for Ontario overturned her decision, ruling that she had improperly expanded the duty in a manner not directly linked to the performance of the contract and limited an expressly bargained-for right. In 2020, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada overruled the Ontario Court of Appeal, reinstated O'Bonsawin's trial award, and provided clarity on the application of Bhasin.[15][17]
In 2024, it was reported that at least two of O'Bonsawin's decisions on the Superior Court of Justice have been reversed by the Ontario Court of Appeal. In one of the cases, the Court of Appeal suggested O'Bonsawin did not understand the law of evidence: "Although trial judges are presumed to know the law, this presumption does not entitle appellate courts to ignore what trial judges actually say in their reasons".[18] A prominent criminal lawyer accused her of making "sloppy errors" and of "misapplications of a bread and butter rule of criminal evidence".[18]
In summer 2021, she co-chaired a conference organized by an association for French-speaking judges in Ontario.[9]
In 2021, she was considered a possible candidate to succeed the retiring Rosalie Abella as a Supreme Court justice from Ontario.[19]
Supreme Court of Canada
On August 19, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nominated O'Bonsawin to the Supreme Court of Canada to replace retiring Justice Michael Moldaver.[20] On August 24, O'Bonsawin appeared for a special meeting with the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to answer questions from parliamentarians from both the House of Commons and Senate.[4] On August 26, 2022, the Office of the Prime Minister announced that her appointment was formally confirmed and she would join the Supreme Court on September 1, 2022, the same day that Moldaver was retiring.[21] O'Bonsawin is the first Indigenous person to sit on Canada's highest court.[4]
^ abc"The Honourable Michelle O'Bonsawin", Supreme Court of Canada website, September 1, 2022, archived from the original on September 2, 2022, retrieved September 1, 2022, Justice O'Bonsawin holds a Bachelor of Arts from Laurentian University, a Bachelor of Law from the University of Ottawa, a Master of Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a Doctorate in Law from the University of Ottawa.
^Watt, D. Lynne; Beedell, Jeffrey; Ragan, Graham; Estabrooks, Matthew (2023). Supreme Court of Canada Practice 2023. Thomson Reuters. p. 780. ISBN9781668715079.
