Professor Innis Christie - Schulich School of Law

Professor Innis Christie (Retired) receives the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society’s 2008 Distinguished Service Award

Mr. Christie was chosen for the many impressive contributions he’s made throughout his legal career: from his work as Deputy Minister of the Department of Labour – the end result of which was a new Occupational Health and Safety Act, and in 1995, a new Workers’ Compensation Act, to his contributions to Canadian labour law, including his development of the Employment Law Course at Dalhousie, and his work as the leading architect of the Nova Scotia Trade Union Act and the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code.

An active labour-management arbitrator since 1965, Innis Christie also has a strong history with the Dalhousie Law School, where he held the post of Dean from 1985-91, from 1971-2003 was a full-time professor, and then, until 2007, a part-time lecturer. He is the founding author of the text Employment Law in Canada, now in its 4th edition, and author of several other books and articles. His work to develop Law School curricula surrounding the legal profession and legal ethics has become a model for similar courses throughout the country. His commitment to the advancement and welfare of important public institutions and his community, also extend to the Society, where he has chaired various committees and is a regular contributor on case law to the Law News.

Winner of the 2008 Bora Laskin Award

Professor Innis Christie Q.C., one of Canada's most respected labour arbitrators, is the 2008 recipient of the University of Toronto Bora Laskin Award for Outstanding Contributions to Labour Law in Canada.

Professor Christie was born and raised in Nova Scotia where he studied political science and then law at Dalhousie University. He subsequently received an LLB in Public Law, a Diploma in Comparative Legal Studies from Cambridge University (1964) and an LLM from Yale University (1969).

Professor Christie started his academic career at Queen's University in 1964, where he completed the classic book on The Liability of Strikers in the Law of Torts, the continuing importance of which is demonstrated by references in recent Supreme Court decisions on picketing. In 1971 Professor Christie returned to his native Nova Scotia and to Dalhousie Law School where he taught full-time until his 'retirement' in 2003, and then part-time until 2007. During this period he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, at Leuven University, Belgium, and at Vreij University, Holland. He served as Dean of the Dalhousie Law School from 1985-1991.

Professor Christie's devotion to law is evident in the breadth of the areas of jurisprudence which he has taught, which range from labour and employment law through poverty law, municipal law, and administrative law, to contracts, commercial law, and professional ethics.

In law reform Professor Christie has also taken a leading role: he wrote for the Woods Task Force on Labour Relations in Canada in 1967, drafted the Nova Scotia Trade Union Act in 1972 (with Dr H.E. Read) and the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code in 1972. For a number of years he played a central role in the national Labour Law Casebook Group.

Professor Christie taught the first law school course in employment law in the early 1970s, and this experience led to what may be his most important academic contribution, Employment Law in Canada, now edited by Professor Geoffrey England, which remains the leading text in that field.

In measuring Professor Christie's impact on labour law in Canada these academic contributions are, however, inseparable from his parallel career as a leading arbitrator and tribunal adjudicator. In this regard, Professor Christie has served in the 1970s as a Member of the Canadian Anti-Inflation Appeal Tribunal (1976-1980), Counsel to the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Tribunal (1972-1980), and Chair of the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board (1972-1979). More recently, he was Deputy Minister in the Nova Scotia Department of Labour (1993-1994), and a Member (from 1995), then Chair (1996-2001), of the Nova Scotia Workers' Compensation Board. Professor Christie has also been a part-time member of the federal Public Service Staff Relations Board, and of the Canadian Human Rights Commission Tribunal. Since 1965 Professor Christie has been a leading labour arbitrator across a wide range of industries, in the public sector, and in universities. He is on numerous panels of arbitrators, including, since 1973, the national panel for Canada Post and CUPW. In addition to his active rights arbitration practice, he is occasionally an arbitrator in interest disputes or chair of conciliation boards. Professor Christie's decisions are widely reported in labour arbitration reports, and he has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1975 and a Queen's Counsel since 1991.

Innis Christie's career in labour law has been truly impressive. He has taught, mentored, and inspired generations of labour law students across Canada, and his contributions to academic labour law, to public policy formation and administration, to labour arbitration and adjudication, and to legal education, are broad, deep, and enduring. To our great benefit he continues to serve our community, which now honours him with this award.