Advocacy Matters - Summer 2020

Q. Describe your role as DADAG?
A. I help with strategic management of
litigation on behalf of the Federal Government
and support the ADAG in her
role as chief legal advisor for litigation.
Q. What drives you up the wall?
A. Bureaucracy [Editor’s note: spot the irony]
INTERVIEW
Interview with Owen Rees:
Great guy, long title
Compiled by Andrew Gibbs,
Department of Justice
In the middle of a pandemic, somewhere between the end of the workday and his kids’ bedtime
routine, Advocacy Matters caught up with Owen Rees, in his latest incarnation – Deputy Assistant
Deputy Attorney General, Justice Canada.
Q. How would you describe your career path?
A. A series of fortunate events, with a public law theme.
• Academic phase – grad school, University of Oxford; teaching part-time for 6-7 years
• Private practice – Stockwoods, Toronto. Formative years in litigation. Tremendous mentors
Brian Gover, Paul Le Vay and Scott Hutchison.
• Executive Legal Officer to Chief Justice McLachlin – Dream opportunity. Fascinating files.
Worked with all the judges on some amazing appeals. Involved in the education arm (National
Judicial Institute) and the discipline arm (Canadian Judicial Council) of the judicial system
in Canada.
• Private practice – Ottawa 2016-2018, including amicus curiae on national security files.
• Joined the DOJ in 2018 as senior general counsel.
Q. Advocacy achievements/awards?
A.
• Co-founder of Supreme Advocacy Institute, 2006. Fellow former SCC clerk, Grégoire Webber,
retired Justice Frank Iacobucci and I established the Institute to provide free assistance
to counsel appearing before the SCC. All counsel can confidentially moot their arguments
before a high-caliber panel of advocates, to prepare for the big day. It was our way of giving
back to the Court and the broader legal community. (Editor’s note: Owen and Grégoire were
awarded the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for improving access to justice).
• Counsel for the Canadian Public Health Association, Canada’s oldest NGO for public health,
as Intervener in Canada (Attorney General) v PHS Community Services Society (“Insite”). The Insite
case dealt with safe injection sites in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and continues to
have a practical impact in the area of public health today. (Editor’s note: the CHPA awarded
Owen and colleagues at Stockwoods the 2012 National Public Health Hero Award for making
a positive difference in public health at a national level).
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