Glenn Joyal, chief justice of King's Court of Manitoba, at the Manitoba Law Courts in October, 2024. The judge has been nominated by Prime Minister Mark Carney for the Supreme Court.Daniel Crump/The Globe and Mail
Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday chose Glenn Joyal, the long-time Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba, for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Through Chief Justice Joyal’s judicial career, spanning nearly three decades, he has established himself as an expert in criminal and constitutional law. He has also overseen major cases related to Indigenous peoples and worked to consider ways in which Indigenous legal traditions could be integrated into how courts operate, an effort to push reconciliation forward.
Chief Justice Joyal, 66, had previously applied for a seat on the Supreme Court’s bench. This time, experts picked him as the obvious front-runner if he chose to apply again, as there were few judges from Western Canada with a similar level of experience and who were able to meet the requirement for bilingualism.
In January, a seat on the top court opened when Justice Sheilah Martin from Calgary announced her retirement. Her last day was May 30, at the end of the court’s fall-winter-spring calendar.
The federal government did not indicate when Chief Justice Joyal would join the Supreme Court. Hearings resume this fall, likely in October.
While Ottawa described Chief Justice Joyal as “the nominee” to the Supreme Court, Canada’s appointment system is not like that in the United States, where the Senate can reject a candidate chosen by the president. Mr. Carney has sole discretion over the decision.
Chief Justice Joyal can serve on the Supreme Court until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 in late 2034.
“Throughout his career, Chief Justice Joyal has demonstrated the integrity, experience, and sound judgment that service on our highest court demands,” Mr. Carney said in a statement.
MPs and senators will have a question-and-answer session with Chief Justice Joyal, though under the federal protocol they are allowed to ask only benign questions. A moderator will steer them away from any probing queries. Ottawa did not announce a date for the session.
Chief Justice Joyal grew up in the St. Boniface area of Winnipeg. His mother was Polish, and her parents came from homesteading families in Saskatchewan. The roots of his father’s Franco-Manitoban family go back more than two centuries. One of his ancestors, Marie Anne Gaboury, was the first woman of European descent to travel to and settle in what is now Western Canada – and was the maternal grandmother of Louis Riel.
Chief Justice Joyal graduated from law school in 1986, with studies at the University of Manitoba and McGill University. He later studied at Oxford University.
He worked as a provincial and federal prosecutor from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and in 1998 launched his career on the bench. Since 2011, he has led the superior court in Manitoba.
In his application to the Supreme Court, which runs nearly 14,000 words, Chief Justice Joyal spent about 1,000 words answering a question about the appropriate role of a judge in Canada’s constitutional democracy.
He wrote about the balance between the work of politicians and the job of judges. While judges recognize the role of elected officials in making policy and interpreting fundamental freedoms, he wrote, “there can be no abdication respecting the judiciary’s own role, which can and must function in a balanced, co-existing way with the legislative branch.”
Manon Savard, Chief Justice of Quebec and the head of the province’s appeal court, has worked closely with Chief Justice Joyal on the Canadian Judicial Council.
“He was easy to work with, and he always was honest in his positions, but always respectful for those who were not sharing his point of view,” Chief Justice Savard said in an interview on Monday. “Always pleasant to work with Glenn. The Supreme Court will be ready for the fall.”
Gerard Kennedy, associate law dean at the University of Alberta, said Chief Justice Joyal has impeccable credentials and will be able to immediately contribute to the Supreme Court. Some new judges at times face a steep learning curve when they join the top court.
“He’s very on brand for Carney,” Prof. Kennedy said on Monday, citing Chief Justice Joyal’s intellectual chops and experience.
With nine judges on the Supreme Court, the departure of one and the addition of another can shift how decision-making plays out. Chief Justice Joyal, like former justice Martin when she joined the Supreme Court in 2017, knows constitutional and criminal law well. Justice Martin, however, was seen as a judge who at times took an expansive view of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, such as in the Taylor decision in February.
Chief Justice Joyal may be more cautious, Prof. Kennedy said.
In a 2017 speech at a Canadian Constitution Foundation conference, Chief Justice Joyal looked at the Charter of Rights, and what he called the “somewhat uneasy and uneven institutional relationship that exists between the judiciary and the legislative branch.”
He argued there had been “an increasing judicial dominance in that judicial/legislative institutional relationship.”
Amar Khoday, associate law dean at the University of Manitoba, said judges in Canada are not obviously marked by the party of their appointment. There are often no obvious “Liberal” or “Conservative” judges. The lines tend to blur on different issues.
“We’ve largely resisted that thing we’ve seen in the United States,” Prof. Khoday said.
Chief Justice Joyal pointed to the 2024 Skibicki decision in his application. The trial lasted six weeks, and was heard by Chief Justice Joyal alone. The case involved an accused serial killer who had confessed to the killings of four vulnerable Indigenous women, one of whom – known as Buffalo Woman – remained unidentified when the trial happened.
DNA evidence later identified Buffalo Woman as Ashlee Shingoose. Chief Justice Joyal held a special sitting to hear victim impact statements from her family and community. He decided the process was necessary to “acknowledge the dignity of the victim and what was lost with her murder.”
In an interview on Monday, Chief Justice of British Columbia Leonard Marchand described Chief Justice Joyal as a judge with humanity and thoughtfulness, and a trailblazer in the work to consider Indigenous legal traditions with the Canadian court system.
“He’s got an uncanny ability to navigate through challenging issues and find good solutions,” Chief Justice Marchand said.
In the Skibicki case, Chief Justice Marchand, who is Syilx and a member of the Okanagan Indian Band, praised Chief Justice Joyal’s “trauma-informed approach.”
“The way he managed the courtroom in that case is a perfect example of the kind of person and jurist he is,” Chief Justice Marchand said.
Chief Justice Joyal has also indicated that judges need to speak out in public when necessary.
In a February speech at the University of Ottawa’s law school, Chief Justice Joyal noted “the well-understood requirement for judicial reserve,” but insisted that being overly reserved was a mistake.
“There is now a need for the sometimes bold, albeit thoughtful, action of judges to say and to do things that might, at first blush, seem at odds or inconsistent with that traditional restraining reflex,” Chief Justice Joyal said.