Atfer her 2018 retirement, she turned her mighty pen to the fictional kind of legal drama: her latest thriller, Proof, hits shelves on September 17.
McLachlin devoted her remaining time to arbitration work. She also served two terms as an overseas judge on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, a recently wrapped tenure that drew criticism from pro-democracy activists who argued that the 2020 passage of Hong Kong’s National Security Law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress jeopardized civil liberties within the region. Even as judicial independence appears to be wobbling worldwide—and, in the case of our U.S. neighbours, uncomfortably close to home—McLachlin, now 80, still believes in Canada’s ability to serve justice.
People think of thriller writing as your second act, but you were into fiction before you were even on the bench, right?
I played around with writing when I was teaching law at UBC, before I dreamed of being a judge. I got as far as sending a manuscript to McClelland & Stewart. They were interested, but they told me it would need a lot of work. I was an amateur. I still am, in some ways.
You’ve said you were a precocious reader as a teen, pulling more adult reads from the library’s shelves. We’re not talking Harlequin here, right?
No, no. Real novels, lots from English novelists. I never got as far as Lady Chatterley’s Lover. When we weren’t working on our family’s farm in Pincher Creek, Alberta, my brother and I would check out the two-book weekly maximum, then trade. It was a small town. There weren’t that many outlets.
Did you bring your writerly flair to your judicial writing?
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"I escaped Gaza and sent my family to Egypt. Now, my goal is to reunite with them in Canada."
Bombs destroyed my neighbourhood and killed my loved ones. I hope my family and I can find refuge in Quebec.
TIDAL WAVE
Susan Lapides chronicles her family's summers in a tiny New Brunswick fishing town
THE NORTHERN FRONT
In Ontario's hinterlands, a battle is brewing between First Nations, prospectors and the provincial government over a multi-billion-dollar motherlode of metals. Inside the fight for the Ring of Fire.
THE CULTURE WAR IN THE CLASSROOM
Several provincial governments now mandate parental consent for kids to change pronouns in Schools. Who gets to decide a child's gender?
THE JACKPOT GENERATION
Canada is in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer of all time, as some $1 trillion passes from boomers to their millennial kids. How an inheritance-based economy will transform the country.
My Child-Free Choice
For a long time, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to become a parent. The climate crisis clinched my decision.
The Main Event
Calgary's massive, modern, newly expanded BMO Centre is open for business
Embrace the Four-Day Workweek
Canada is facing a national productivity crisis. One counterintuitive solution? Give workers more time off.
Richard Ireland, mayor of Jasper, is ready to rebuild
IT'S TEMPTING TO LEAN on numbers when conveying the scale of the damage wrought by July's fire in Jasper, Albertathe worst in the national park's 117-year history. Water bombers were grounded in the face of 400-foot-high flames. More than 25,000 visitors and residents were evacuated as hundreds of firefighters flew in to assist. Damages exceeded $700 million. A third of the town's structures were consumed-historical buildings, tourist haunts and family homes. One of them belonged to Richard Ireland.
"The Taliban tried to kill me at 16.Eight years later, I am free in Canada."
I ATTENDED A PRIVATE ENGLISH SCHOOL in the Jaghori District of Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
