Dugald Christie was born in New York on November 7, 1940 with his father, Ronald Christie, 3000 miles away in London. As Physician in Chief of the London Hospital, his father was unable to leave England as his wife and daughter had done to flee Hitler’s probable invasion. In 1942, when it looked as if the war was ending and Dugald was 18 months old, his mother crossed the Atlantic to visit her husband expecting to return in a month.  She was not allowed back across the Atlantic as 14 of the 20 ships of the next convoy were torpedoed.  It was three years later when Dugald and his sister went to join their parents in London.  En route, the oil tanker next to their ship was torpedoed. Dugald’s understanding of the world was an adversarial one, with Hitler as his first enemy. He was to devote his life to fighting for justice and, in particular, for the poor.  

After obtaining his Law Degree from Dalhousie in 1966, he started a law practice in Vancouver and lived in a beautiful house in Lion’s Bay. Several dramatic events in his life prompted Dugald’s rebellion and major change in his career. An act of God (in whom he now fiercely believed) resulted in a landslide that killed his neighbours’ two sons and left Dugald’s house almost worthless. He took on his neighbours’ cause and fought for justice. He succeeded in getting only $5000 in personal recompense and was so incensed by his experience with the justice system that he developed a great empathy for the underdog and more and more pursued his work for the poor. He said, “The risky change [in his law practice] resulted more from a “feeling” of outrage at the way the poor and handicapped are treated by our legal system than any logical process.” He followed his feelings, but had not said goodbye to reason and prudence.

Dugald wrote of himself: “Now I relieve my rebellion against the ways of the world by bicycling to Ottawa to burn my lawyer’s robes, publishing articles that judges are appointed by a system of patronage, by building a small army of lawyers to fight poverty… I lived in a Salvation Army halfway house for three years surrounded by ex-convicts and addicts of all kinds.  From that citadel of poverty I attacked the highest figures in the profession…. I do not seem to have any real choice in these matters.  Unfortunately, it is not a matter of virtue.  I think it comes from my early childhood experiences.” 

A client, Buddy Lee, who had suffered brain damage and who had been called a “misfit” by a judge prompted Dugald’s first bicycle trip across Canada in 1998.  He was 57 and it wasn’t easy; the Rockies were particularly tough, but Dugald talked to all he met, leaving a trail of impact in the form of conversations educating people about the legal system. He would cycle across Canada twice more.  In 2000, he fasted on the Supreme Court steps in Ottawa to protest the failure of the legal system to provide fair access to the poor in a timely fashion. 

In 2002, Dugald took a bus trip from Vancouver to Moncton to pass a resolution at the Canadian Bar Association Annual Meeting to approve a business plan to fund and organize pro bono clinics across the nation for every community over 30,000 people. The proposal failed to win the necessary support.  He felt despair and bitterness, but he resolved not to give up on the Bar. He wrote: “To me, pro bono is meeting the poor on their own turf and not in the high rise law office. It is rubbing shoulders with the down and out…sympathizing; not pitying.” Dugald discovered that all it usually took to help lawyers to understand and start to do regular pro bono work was a few sessions in the trenches.

In March 2006, Dugald received the Lawyer of the Year Award from the B.C. Law Association. In the summer of 2006, at age 65, he once more set out on his bicycle, this time to present a petition to the Prime Minister, and to try for the third time to put his resolution before the Canadian Bar to establish pro bono clinics across Canada at their Annual Meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This time he was optimistic that it would pass.  Two days into the journey, he learned that he had been acknowledged for distinguished service by the Canadian Bar. He left his bicycle and took the bus back to Vancouver to receive the award and then resumed his trip.

 At 6pm on July 31, 2006 near Sault St. Marie, a mini-van failed to see Dugald on his bicycle and killed him outright. On his video camera were interviews of people he had met all across Canada and had asked to simply comment on the Canadian justice system. This video will remain a permanent legacy of Dugald’s dedication to bring about change in the legal system.

Dugald Christie gave up a lucrative law practice and enviable lifestyle and, in the end, lost his life pursuing the cause of justice for all.  His family and the many that supported Dugald and his life’s journey pray that the many causes to which he dedicated his life will be completed.

For his selfless voluntarism in the very best of the Weldon Tradition, Dalhousie Law School is proud to recognize Dugald Ervine Christie as its 2007 recipient of the Weldon Award for Unselfish Public Service.