Steering the Course: A Memoir

313 Pages·2000·18.243 MB·English

by  Sam Hughes

STEERING THE COURSE
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S T E E R I NG T HE C O U R SE
A Memoir S AM H U G H ES
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Quecn's University Press 2000
ISBN 0-7735-2042-2
Legal deposit second quarter 2000
Bibliotheque Rationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities. We
also acknowledge the support of the Canada
Council for the Arts for our publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hughes, S. H. S.
Steering the Course : A Memoir
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7735-2042-2
i. Hughes, S. H. S. a. Ontario. Supreme Court -
Biography. 3. Judges - Ontario - Biography, i. Title.
KEi6.H8A3 2000 347.7i3'°3534 cgg-go^g-g
4 3
Typeset in New Baskerville 10.5/13
To Helen,
for sixty years
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Origins 3
2 A Toronto Education 22
3 Hawk Lake and Oxford 38
4 Back to School 52
5 Qualifications 65
6 Training and Transition 77
7 The Intelligence Phase 84
8 The Historical Section 90
9 The Road to Rome 94
10 The Way Back 118
11 Return to the Law 124
12 Public Necessity and Convenience 152
13 The High Court 170
14 Ottawa, 1959-1963 175
15 Return to Judgment 199
viiii CONTENTS
16 Hobby-Horses 213
17 Ten Years to Go 225
18 Out of Court 238
19 The Evil That Men Do 247
20 A Very Distinct Society 265
21 As for Myself 271
Index 277
A cknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge with grateful thanks the help given me in
preparing this book by the Joanne Goodman Foundation at the
University of Western Ontario and its executants, my friends the
Hon. E.A. Goodman, PC, oc, QC, Lio, etc., and Professor Neville
Thompson, pho, through whom I was able to secure secretarial
assistance and particularly several versions of the dictated type-
script flawlessly produced by Susan Goddard.
To my friend Sir William Doughty I owe resolution of the prob-
lem of what to call the book, the title of which reflects his abiding
interest in rowing developed from his experience as an oarsman
and as captain of the Trinity College Boat Club of Dublin. All the
other expressions of opinion in these pages are my own without
qualification.
To Helen, my wife, my daughter, Lynn Clappison, her husband,
John, and my son, Sam, it is beyond me to express the gratitude
they deserve and these arid words must suffice.
S.H.