Canada’s new Governor General began career at Queen’s Law

By Hugh Winsor

Photo by Sgt Serge Gouin, Rideau Hall © 2010 Office of the Secretary to the Governor General of Canada

David Johnston, Law '66, LLD '91, is installed as the 28th Governor General of Canada in the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on October 1, 2010.

It was not by happenstance that David Johnston, Law ’66, LLD ’91, now the 28th Governor General of Canada, showed up on the Queen’s Law campus in the fall of 1965. What may be more revealing is the impact he made when he arrived.

Some of the qualities that have taken him on a stunningly successful journey through law, university leadership, public service, and yes, even a dab of politics—qualities of brilliance, diligence, appetite for research, persistence and pragmatism—brought him to Queen’s and catalyzed his conversion from student to teacher.
While still in high school in Sault Ste. Marie, young Johnston was known as a “brainy jock,” starring both on the hockey rink and in the classroom. It was his ability on the ice, as much as his top marks, that interested Harvard.

By the time he graduated from Harvard Magna Cum Laude he was twice named to the All-American Hockey Team and an inductee into Harvard’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

But he turned down an offer of a tryout with the Boston Bruins to take up a scholarship to study law at Cambridge. And this is where Queen’s and his own pragmatism came into the picture. Before he left for England, he wrote to all Ontario law schools asking how much credit he would get for his Cambridge studies.

Dean Bill Lederman responded that he could enter third year at Queen’s and graduate the following spring, as long as he made up all of the Canadian content. On registration day, as Johnston recalls it, Lederman gave him his timetable with subjects from each of the three years. “He then said, ‘Unfortunately your timetable is full and there is no room for Mortgages or Civil Procedure.’ My jaw dropped. I envisaged having to do an extra year to make up these compulsory subjects. To which he replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure Professors Soberman and Ryan will be happy to give you private sessions for Mortgages and Civil Procedure’ -- and they did.”

Photo by Bernard Clark

Dean Bill Flanagan escorts Governor David Johnston to the Celebration of Life reception for Professor Emeritus Dan Soberman at Queen’s University on October 17, 2010.

As Don Carter, Law ’66, (later dean and now professor emeritus) remembers his classmate’s arrival, “We were all very impressed with this energetic and personable newcomer who already had degrees from Harvard and Cambridge.”

So were his new professors, and the young scholar was asked to consider postponing his articles in favour of staying on at Queen’s to teach. Professor Emeritus Bernie Adell, who taught him in 1965-66, remembers that “David did make quite a mark. ...He was very competent as a student, but more noteworthy were his tremendous drive and energy, his collegiality and the fact that he was surprisingly mature for someone so young. He was a very warm and highly regarded colleague.”  

And students of the young faculty member were also impressed. One of them, Denis Magnusson, Law ’68, (now professor emeritus) describes his teacher as a “pioneering scholar of securities regulation” at a time when the field was acquiring an increasing and controversial importance (and when Queen’s was competing vigorously for such specialists).  

After two years of commuting to Toronto because of his work for the Economic Research Council, research for his first book, Canadian Securities Regulation, and time with his new wife Sharon (a physical and occupational therapy graduate), Johnston accepted an appointment at the University of Toronto in 1968.

During his six years teaching at U of T Law he was also very active publishing articles and books on securities law and acting as consultant to the Ontario Securities Commission, where he became counsel to both the OSC committees studying problems of disclosure and the committee studying industry ownership.

Photo by Bernard Clark

Governor General David Johnston greets Patricia Soberman (MA '63) at the Celebration of Life for Professor Emeritus Dan Soberman.

In 1974 he became dean of the law faculty at the University of Western Ontario. Five years later, he moved to McGill as principal, but also kept his hand in teaching at the McGill law faculty (to which he returned full time after three terms as principal). That means he has taught at four of the country’s leading law schools, but it was at Cambridge and Queen’s where his philosophy of the law was developed, an approach he pursued for the next three decades.

Discussing that philosophy in an interview, the Governor General gave particular credit to the late dean and professor emeritus Dan Soberman, LLD ‘08. “My approach to the law (and Danny was passionate about this) is to see Law and Justice as two somewhat different sides of the same coin and to ask my students always, ‘Is law just or is this particular law on which you are working just, and if not, what will you do about it?’ To answer this question you have to know the particular law and its history and applications, and you must have a concept of justice against which to measure it.”

Over the years he applied these basic concepts, not only in his teaching, but also in his many books and in his many public service appointments, ranging from heading the advisory committee to the federal government on how to manage and regulate the internet to investigating and later setting the terms for a judicial inquiry into the financial dealings between former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and arms dealer and lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber.

Photo by Sgt Serge Gouin, Rideau Hall © 2010 Office of the Secretary to the Governor General of Canada

Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulates Governor General David Johnston during the installation ceremony.

Asked why he accepted so many public assignments, some of them, like the Schreiber-Mulroney scandal, both time-consuming and unpleasant, Governor General Johnston talks about duty rather than choice. “I believe that all professionals have a very special responsibility to their society. A professional is a second-class citizen in the sense that he or she has a duty that goes beyond a duty to earn one’s bread and look after one’s family. You have a duty to society, and sometimes that constrains what you do. The duty of lawyers to society at large and to the due administration of the law is a very fundamental one.”

And if, in his new position as Governor General, his duty to protect Parliament is tested in a confrontation with the government of the day, the late Dean Lederman’s course on constitutional law will be in his armoury.

Although law has played a prominent role in his life, the broader field of university leadership has also been important, first at McGill in the tension-filled period leading up to the 1995 Quebec referendum when the role of an English-speaking university in Quebec came under pressure. In 1999, when he was recruited to become president of the University of Waterloo, it was drama and opportunity of a more positive sort. In his 11 years there, he took Waterloo from a relatively modest institution with a strong reputation for innovative approaches to engineering to a world leader in the digital and technological revolution. In co-operation with industry and provincial and federal governments, Waterloo, under his leadership, raised and invested more than $600-million in leading-edge research facilities and programs.

Meanwhile, he was acquiring a prominent profile in public affairs as commentator, television host (including refereeing the televised leaders’ debates in the 1988 election), leader of the Advisory Council on the Information Highway and founding chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. Although approached many times to be a candidate for Parliament, the closest he came to electoral politics was as co-chair of the No Committee opposing Quebec separation during the 1995 Referendum. He was also called upon by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien for advice on constitutional reform and co-wrote the book If Quebec Goes…the Real Cost of Separation.

All this was on top of a formidable output as a scholar: a total of 24 books on corporate finance, securities, environmental and communications law plus dozens of chapters, papers and reports. His two favourites areCanadian Securities Law, which he admits is rather dry but sets out his philosophy of regulation (he is currently revising the 5th edition with former student Kathleen Rockwell), and CyberLaw, which he wrote with his daughter Debbie and former student Sonny Handa. (The Preface describes why they wrote it as an intergenerational exercise.)

Photo by Bernard Clark

Governor General David Johnston (second from right), Law '66, LLD '91, reconnects with classmates on October 17, 2010: Professor Emeritus Don Carter, Law '66; Heather Mutch; Bill Mutch, Law '66; Catherine Carter, Arts '64; and Rod MacDougall, Law '66.

This rich and varied career explains why he has been described as the best prepared Governor General in Canadian history. And he certainly won’t be shy. As his investiture address and his speeches and activities in the first weeks in office have shown, he plans to use all of the levers of his position (including the position’s traditional rights to be informed, to advise and to warn) to promote his vision of Canada. That vision includes support for families and children, reinforced learning and innovation, philanthropy and volunteerism. “I see my role as a bridge in bringing people of all backgrounds and ages together to create a smart and caring nation, a nation that will inspire not just Canadians but the entire world.”

Could anyone have predicted this stellar ascent when David Johnston showed up at Queen’s Law 45 years ago? Don Carter thinks he might have. During their year as classmates, Johnston often gave Carter a lift to Toronto in his VW Beetle. “During that year we shared many hours of conversations on the 401, and what impressed me at the time was David’s strong commitment to public service. Looking back on those conversations, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that my chauffeur was a future Governor General of Canada.”