1. Roy McMurtry was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1975 to 1985, serving in the cabinet of Bill Davis as Attorney General and as Solicitor General.
38 Facts About Roy McMurtry
1. 2.
Roy McMurtry became a judge in 1991 and was appointed Chief Justice of Ontario in 1996.
3.
Roy McMurtry retired from the bench in 2007 and returned to the private practice of law.
4.
Roland Roy McMurtry was born in Toronto as the son of lawyer Roy McMurtry.
5.
Roy McMurtry was educated at St Andrew's College and graduated in 1950.
6.
Roy McMurtry received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1954, and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1958.
7.
Roy McMurtry taught adult literacy classes at Frontier College, working through the day on construction projects and teaching at night.
8.
Roy McMurtry was a trial lawyer for seventeen years before entering politics.
9.
Roy McMurtry wrote a weekly column in the Toronto Sun during the early 1970s.
10.
Roy McMurtry suffered a back injury during the 1971 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership convention and was able to exempt himself from choosing between Davis and rival candidate Allan Lawrence, whose campaign was managed by Atkins.
11.
Allan Lawrence resigned his St George constituency in late 1972 to move to federal politics, and Roy McMurtry was recruited by Davis as the Progressive Conservative candidate for a March 1973 by-election.
12.
Roy McMurtry was unexpectedly defeated by Liberal Party candidate Margaret Campbell, a well-known municipal politician.
13.
Roy McMurtry was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario two years later, in the 1975 provincial election, defeating Liberal candidate Frank Judge in the Eglinton constituency.
14.
Davis won a minority government in the 1975 election, and Roy McMurtry was immediately appointed to cabinet as Attorney General.
15.
Roy McMurtry held this position until 1985, and he served as Solicitor General from 1978 to 1982.
16.
Roy McMurtry introduced a large number of law reform bills and was largely responsible for family law reform in Ontario.
17.
Roy McMurtry was a major advocate for human rights and improved race relations.
18.
Roy McMurtry was a Red Tory, and he was one of Davis's closest advisers in government.
19.
Roy McMurtry appeared as counsel for Ontario in the Patriation Reference before the Supreme Court of Canada.
20.
Roy McMurtry was criticized for his Ministry's role in her wrongful prosecution.
21.
Roy McMurtry was Attorney-General at the time of the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids which were widely denounced as one of the most socially regressive acts in the province's history.
22.
When Davis resigned as Progressive Conservative leader and premier in 1985, Roy McMurtry sought the party's leadership at the party's January 1985 leadership convention.
23.
Roy McMurtry started as the underdog in the campaign, but impressed many delegates through his performance in candidates' debates and polling data showing him as the preferred choice of Ontario voters.
24.
Roy McMurtry's supporters included Robert Elgie, Frank Drea, Reuben Baetz and Bob MacQuarrie.
25.
Roy McMurtry won a total of 300 votes on the first ballot, considerably more than had been expected.
26.
Roy McMurtry was eliminated from the contest and gave his support to Grossman, a fellow Red Tory.
27.
Roy McMurtry's support was enough to move Grossman into second place on the second ballot, ahead of the more centrist Timbrell.
28.
On February 4,1985, Canadian External Affairs Minister Joe Clark announced that Roy McMurtry had been appointed to succeed Donald Jamieson as Canada's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
29.
Roy McMurtry was appointed Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court in Ontario in 1991, and he became Chief Justice of that court in 1994.
30.
Roy McMurtry became Chief Justice of Ontario in 1996, heading the entire court system in the province and leading the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
31.
Roy McMurtry is credited with helping transform a backlogged and sometimes fractious court into a highly efficient, harmonious body.
32.
Roy McMurtry returned to the practice of law after retiring from the bench.
33.
Roy McMurtry was a member of Pro Bono Law Ontario's Advisory Board.
34.
Roy McMurtry was married to Ria Jean Macrae, with whom he had six children and 12 grandchildren.
35.
Roy McMurtry supported Eric Hoskins in the 2013 Ontario Liberal Party leadership election and Peter Elgie, Green Party of Canada candidate for the York-Simcoe riding in the 2014 Ontario general election and son of Robert Elgie, a Red Tory Progressive Conservative who served as Minister of Labour from 1978 to 1982 and MPP for York East from 1977 to 1985.
36.
In 2013, McMurtry was given the G Arthur Martin medal for outstanding contributions to criminal justice.
37.
Roy McMurtry served as the 12th Chancellor of York University from 2008 to 2014.
38.
The headquarters of the Attorney General of Ontario, the "Roy McMurtry-Scott Building", is named in honour of Roy McMurtry and Ian Scott.