Beverley McLachlin

As a lawyer, judge, and professor, and the first woman to be chief

justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Beverley

McLachlin has dedicated her life to the idea of equal justice for all

people.

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There was not much doubt that Beverley McLachlin was going to be a success. Growing
up in the small town of Pincher Creek, Alberta in the 1940s, Beverley was an excellent
student and had learned the value of hard work from her farmer parents.
The question was - what would she do with her excellent brain? Beverley herself was not
sure, even while she was going to university, but two things happened that changed her
life.
The first incident was a chance meeting with a stranger on the bus. The stranger was a
Native Canadian, who told Beverley how she had been taken from her family, forced to
go to a “residential school,” and how her culture and language were taken away from her.
The second incident was a special privilege - being chosen to go on a foreign study trip as
part of one of her university programs. In the African country of Algeria, Beverley saw
real poverty and injustice. She learned how hard life was for people who had no rights
and no one to stand up for them.
These events strengthened Beverley McLachlin’s sense of justice and fairness, and she
never forgot them. She went on to earn her law degree and dedicate her life to the idea of
equal justice for all people.