Gwen Landolt, a right wing activist, has described McLachlin as “clever and duplicitous.” A close observer of the Supreme Court commented that she seeks “consensus at the expense of principle,” and “will cobble together just about anything to achieve agreement.” (Nonetheless, personally McLachlin remains a frequent dissenter in decisions.) A senior lawyer who has appeared many times before the court said she runs it as if it were a part of government: “She’s always moving to the centre; she’s not prepared to be outrageous, and I think that’s a problem. It’s a court of justice, not a government department.” Another told me, “the court is less daring than it should be. It sometimes defers on major moral issues, and that is cowardice.”
A former law clerk to one of McLachlin’s predecessors as chief justice, who has since appeared often before the Supreme Court, said that McLachlin seems unduly constrained by her role. “She seems to think she speaks for the court, or should. She forgets she is just one of nine judges.” Another former clerk said, “She loves her prerogatives as chief justice, like being deputy governor general.” “No presence at all,” an Ottawa insider told me. “I was at a dinner speech she made, and it was very boring. People started chatting with each other before she had finished.” A very senior federal politician said, “Beverley McLachlin has never had an original idea.”
There will always be naysayers. Despite their complaints, Beverley McLachlin has done a good job as chief justice. She is competent and coherent, and, so far, we seem content with her as only Canadians can be. But, is McLachlin a true leader, or just an agreeable legal technocrat? Where is the articulated vision, from the bully pulpit, of better law in a better society? The jury is still out on the answers to these questions. McLachlin has almost 10 years before she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75, to put our minds at rest.
If there were a quintessential Canadian, she might be Beverley McLachlin. No elite background here; she’s from a small town, the child of deeply religious parents, educated well but not in foreign schools and universities, never divorced but having experience life as a single mother after her first husband died, mainstream all the way, even-handed and even-tempered, moderate and cautious; probably smarter, more self-confident, perhaps more ambitious—and certainly luckier—than most.
Philip Slayton is a former dean of a Canadian law school, and was partner of a major law firm. He is working on a book about the Supreme Court of Canada, where he once clerked.
