The man does not know me. I have never been to dinner with him. I have only shaken his hands at numerous functions that he has attended. I have sat in the audience to listen to his speeches. In reviewing a book I wrote, Kirk Makin of the Globe and Mail said that I was an outsider in the legal profession. But the man does not treat me as an outsider. He does not treat anybody as an outsider to justice and the legal system.

The man, the subject of this short piece is the retiring Chief Justice of Ontario, the Honourable Roy McMurtry. The Federal Government will be hard pressed to find a person who will fit Justice McMurtry's shoes. McMurtry was at ease whether he was engulfed in a sea of black faces in a wayward community hall in Toronto or in a sea of white faces on Bay Street. McMurtry's concerns for the inclusion of alienated black youth who are potential recruits to the life of crime into the mainstream society is unequalled by any Chief Justice who has ever dorned the Black Robes of this province.  His support of the efforts of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers  and other community groups in all communities to realize their goals of inclusion in the Canadian mosaic and to enjoy the fruits of citizenship like mainstream society does is unchallengeable.

It is thus not surprising that community newspapers like Pride Newsmagazine have presented awards through the African Canadian Achievement Awards in recognition of the contributions of outside community individuals like Roy McMurtry. The African Canadian Achievement Awards have traditionally only been dished out to individuals of African heritage. Now a person from outside the community who has made signal contribution to the improvement of the life chances of African Canadians can be honoured in recognition of this fact. Roy McMurtry is such an individual.

Roy McMurtry did not only do the talk--mere talk is cheap. Everyone can talk. But he did the walk as well. He helped quite a number of individuals achieve their goals. He has helped in diversifying the judiciary and other places where minorities needed not tread.

McMurtry also helped in bringing hidden knowledge of the rich legal history of this country by founding of the Osgoode Society which publishes seminal works on legal history of Ontario and Canada. Those of us who are familiar with the publications of the Osgoode Society marvel at how we could ever have known a lot about the Legal history of Canada had the Osgoode Society not existed. There is nothing published outside there comparable to what exists at the Osgoode Society. The Osgoode Society also keeps an archive of all the interviews it has done of many prominent jurists and lawyers including Black Judges and Lawyers like Vibert Lampkin, Maurice Charles, Lloyd Perry,  Leonard Braithwaite, Charles Roach and others. It is now easier to do research, thanks to the efforts of people like McMurtry.

The closest one can get to finding a person like McMurtry is to think back in history of another country and Chief Justice: that of Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court (1953 to 1969). That Chief Justice was the beginning of the the new paradigm in legal relations and the concept of justice in the US. His leadership brokered the breaking down of the Jim Crow tradition of "separate but equal" doctrine. In Ontario, Chief Justice McMurtry stood for the proposition that it does not matter what your colour or religion is: you are entitled to equal treatment, respect and inclusion in this our  great land.

I look at the horizon and ask myself: Who will fit the bill to follow in the footsteps of this giant in the service of justice?