Brian Flemming

CM, QC, DCL, BSc, LLB, LLM, DIP INT LAW

Brian Flemming is a Crown Corporation chairman, policy advisor, consultant, writer and international lawyer. He is currently Chairman of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), a Crown Corporation that was created by Parliament on April 1, 2002, to improve security at Canadian airports and on Canadian aircraft. He acted as CATSA’s first Chief Executive Officer and oversaw the setting up of CATSA.

Previously, in 2000-2001, Mr. Flemming was Chairman of the Canada Transportation Act Review (CTAR) Panel, a statutorily-mandated decennial review of all of Canada’s transport policies. His report, entitled “Vision and Balance”, was widely hailed by all sectors of Canada’s transport community. In 2003, he was awarded the National Transportation Week “Award of Achievement”.

Mr. Flemming is a former senior partner of the Atlantic regional law firm of Stewart, McKelvey, Stirling and Scales (formerly Stewart, MacKeen and Covert), where he practised law from 1964 to 1976, and again from 1979 to 1984 when he left the firm to pursue private business interests and to perform public service. He articled with the late Chief Justice Gordon S. Cowan. He was admitted to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1963 and called to the Ontario Bar in 1981. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1977 in Nova Scotia.

Two of his most recent publications include "Arctic Routing and Potential Impact on Global Shipping Patterns" (2010) and "Are Canadians Becoming 'Dogs' in a Northern 'Manger'?".

Other publications:

The Political and Diplomatic Dimensions of Canada's Arctic Policies: Separating Mirage from Reality (2009)

Canada-U.S. Relations in the Arctic: A Neighbourly Proposal (2008) Prepared for the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI) www.cdfai.org

Northwest Passage: a voyage Canada and the U.S. can take together (The Globe and Mail, December 18, 2007) View article View text

Biography

Born in Halifax, Mr. Flemming received a Bachelor of Science from Saint Mary’s University, a Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie, a Master of Laws from University College London and the coveted Hague Diploma in International Law, awarded to only several hundred people since 1945. Mr Flemming received many scholarships and prizes throughout his university career.

In 1989, Mr. Flemming was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 1991, he was awarded the Canada 125 medal and, in 2002, received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee medal.

Between 1976 and 1979, Mr. Flemming was Assistant Principal Secretary and Policy Advisor to the Rt. Hon. Pierre E. Trudeau. In that post, he was responsible for a wide range of national and regional policy issues. He was responsible for advising Prime Minister Trudeau to set up the Macdonald Royal Commission which led ultimately to the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He was an unsuccessful Liberal candidate for election to Parliament in Halifax in the federal elections of 1974 and 1979. In 1979, he lost by 14 votes, the closest race in Canada that year.

In addition to practising law, from 1964 to 1976, Mr. Flemming taught Commercial Law at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and the Law of International Institutions, Public International Law of the Sea and Fisheries Law and Policy at Dalhousie Law School. He was the first person to offer advanced courses in public international law at Dalhousie. For many years, he also taught international law at the Naval War College at Newport, R.I. In the 1970s, he created a course in international law for Canadian naval officers at the Warfare School at CFB “Stadacona”. He also lectured and gave many papers at universities, conferences and institutions in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Many of his articles appeared in peer-reviewed journals. He gave “name” lectures at the University of Virginia, the Technical University of Nova Scotia and Louisiana State University Law School in the 1970s.

Mr. Flemming was one of the founders, and first national president, of the Dalhousie Law Alumni Association. Since 1985, he has been honorary national chairman of that association. He has been a member of the Board of Governors or three universities or colleges. He served two terms as an elected alumni representative on the board of Dalhousie University. He was, first, a board member, and from 1992 to 2001, Chairman of the Board of Canada’s oldest university, the University of King’s College. He was national chairman of the successful Bicentennial Campaign that raised more than $8 million. King’s awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1991 and established an annual lecture in his honour in 2002. He was a trustee of Pearson College of the Pacific for six years.

Nationally, Mr. Flemming was the youngest person --- and the only one from Atlantic Canada --- to have been vice chairman of The Canada Council (now the Canada Council for the Arts and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council). He was acting chairman of the Council for close to two years and was a member for five years prior to that. He has been a director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is, or has also been, a member of the national boards of the following organizations: the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) and the International Oceans Institute of Canada (IOIC).

Internationally, Mr. Flemming was a member of the Trilateral Commission for two years. He has led, or been part of, many Canadian delegations to international conferences and meetings including the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference (UNCLOSIII). He was founding chairman of the International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD), a Canadian government supported NGO designed to help less developed countries manage their oceanic exclusive economic zones. ICOD eventually became a Crown Corporation.

In Nova Scotia, Mr. Flemming was a founding director of two symphony orchestras: the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and Symphony Nova Scotia (SNS). He was SNS’s first president. In a book published by The Financial Post entitled “Great Canadian Turnarounds”, Mr Flemming’s successful turnaround of SNS was the subject of one of the book’s chapters. He has been a director of Neptune Theatre Foundation and chairman of the Maritime Conservatory for the Performing Arts. Currently, he is co-chairman of Nova Centre for the Performing Arts, an organization dedicated to building a new, 2200-seat performing arts venue in downtown Halifax.

In his business career, Mr. Flemming is, or has been, a director of following public companies: Noranda Inc., Brunswick Mining and Smelting Co., Enheat Inc., VGM Capital Corporation, First Choice Canadian Communications Corp., Homburg Invest Inc. and Azure Resources Corp.

Since 1980, he has been president of Eastern Policy Research Associates Ltd., a consulting company that has provided strategic, management, marketing, environmental and public policy advice to a wide variety of public and private clients. EPRA oversaw the commercialization of Marine Atlantic’s Bay of Fundy ferry services, one of Canada’s most successful commercializations in the transport sector.

In the 1980s, Mr. Flemming chaired, and was part owner of, Wimpey Sable Marine Limited, a joint venture between several Canadian companies and George Wimpey plc of London, U.K. Wimpey Sable managed a small fleet of offshore supply vessels on Canada’s east coast.

In 1994, Mr. Flemming became a featured weekly columnist for The Daily News of Halifax. Since then, he has written on a wide range of business, legal, political, cultural and scientific subjects. His columns have been carried by many national and regional newspapers. From 1998 to 2003, he also wrote weekly columns for AOL Canada. For three years, he was a regular political panellist on CTV’s Sunday Edition. Many of his columns have been expanded and published by Policy Options. In 1999, he edited a book on Halifax.

He is married to the former Janice Merritt. They have two adult children, Ann and Mark. He is functionally bilingual.