Devoted to the law

Law professor Innis Christie was awarded the 2008 University of Toronto Bora Laskin Award and Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society’s 2008 Distinguished Service Award. (Nick Pearce Photo)

This article originally appeared on Dalnews on November 17, 2008. Prof. Christie died Monday, Feb. 9, 2009 at the age of 71. A celebration of his life will be held Saturday, Feb. 14, 1:30 p.m. in the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, Dalhousie Arts Centre.

As a boy, he watched his father run the family business, building caskets in Amherst, Nova Scotia, the town where he was born and raised. As a student, he spent three summers and one winter, from 1958 to 1961 with Frontier College on a railway extra gang, in mines and a logging camp, working each day and in the evenings teaching English to immigrant workers.

These experiences would help shape Innis Christie as an arbitrator. His familiarity with management and workers would be invaluable to his career as an academic and lawyer, and his influence and contributions in labour and employment law. 

Labour law and employment law exist in our everyday lives. Most dramatically seen in the news in the form of labour negotiations, collective agreements and strikes, they are also the laws that govern all relationships between employers and employees, ensuring such rights as protection against discrimination, due notice on termination, minimum wages, days off, overtime, pensions, safety at work and workers’ compensation.

Innis Christie, one of the most respected labour arbitrators in Canada, dedicated his career to practice, teaching and writing in this area. For this, he’s been awarded the 2008 University of Toronto Bora Laskin Award for Distinguished Contributions to Canadian Labour Law.

“I’m very pleased,” says Prof. Christie on receiving the award. “I know those who are prior recipients and to be recognized with them is a tremendous honour.”

Prof. Christie, who began his academic career at Queen’s University in 1964, was a professor at the Dalhousie Law School from 1971 to 2007 and Dean from 1985 to 1991.

Amongst his numerous contributions, he taught the first law school employment law course in Canada and was the original author of Employment Law in Canada, a leading text in the field.

In practice, Prof. Christie has been just as influential. He was the leading architect of the Nova Scotia Trade Union Act and Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code, a member of the Canadian Anti-Inflation Appeal Tribunal, Counsel to the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Tribunal and served as Chair of the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board from 1972 to 1979 and of the Workers’ Compensation Board from 1996 to 2001. 

Following the Westray Mine Disaster in 1995 he was asked by the Nova Scotia government to become Deputy Minister of Labour, a testament to his career as an educator and arbitrator. During his tenure as Deputy Minister, he led the creation of the new Occupational Health and Safety Act and Worker’s Compensation Act.

“It meant a lot to me to have been asked by the province to be Deputy Minister in a difficult time,” says Prof. Christie. “I felt it was a vote of confidence in my abilities that they would trust me to do the job.”

For these and his many other contributions, Mr. Christie is also the recipient of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society’s 2008 Distinguished Service Award.

“It’s a great surprise for me,” he says. “That award has never been given to an academic, and while I’m not sure I contributed enough to the Bar to deserve it, it’s a real honour.”