Justice Robert A. Blair Appointed Chair of Copyright Board of Canada

Congratulations to Justice Robert A. Blair on his appointment as Chair of the Copyright Board and to the Government for making this appointment.

He is a highly regarded and very experienced Judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal and has had important judicial involvement in IP and related cases over the years, including Robertson v. Thomson.  He has also been a regular panelist in past years for the Harold G. Fox IP Moot.

His brief bio on the ONCA website indicates that:

Brief Biographical Note of Justice Robert A. Blair

Mr. Justice Blair was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in November 5, 2003. Prior to that appointment, he had been Regional Senior Justice for the Toronto Region of the Superior Court of Justice. Mr. Justice Blair received his B.A. (Hons.) from Queen’s University in 1965 and his LL.B. from University of Toronto Law School in 1968. He was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1970 and practiced primarily in the field of general civil litigation, with an emphasis on corporate/commercial litigation and administrative law, during his career at the Bar. He was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice (General Division), now the Superior Court of Justice, in 1991. Mr. Justice Blair has been an ardent supporter of the use of alternative dispute resolution techniques both before and after his appointment to the Bench. He was a member of the Steering Committee, which oversaw the implementation of a Court-connected ADR Center in Toronto, the first of its kind in Canada, and has been closely involved with the Mandatory Mediation project in Toronto and the introduction of case management in Ontario. He was Co-Chair of the Civil Justice Review, which conducted a broad review of the civil justice system in Ontario and made extensive recommendations regarding the implementation of an integrated series of reforms to that system. The Civil Justice Review published its First Report in March 1995 and its Supplemental and Final Report in November 1996. As a judge he has presided in all areas of the work of the Superior Court, with particular emphasis on cases on the Commercial List at Toronto.

No doubt, his experience as Co-Chair of the Civil Justice Review in Ontario which produced landmark reports on institutional justice reform and with the highly regarded Commercial List will prove to be very useful in addressing the procedural issues confronting the Copyright Board.

HPK

(updated July 6, 2015)