2025 Merv Leitch QC Memorial Lecture

March 26 | Noon - 1:00 p.m. | McLennan Ross Hall (LC 231/237)

Faculty of Law: 2025 Merv Leitch QC Memorial Lecture; The Importants and Uniqueness of the Canadian Judicial System: A Lecture on Its History and Safeguards with Chief Justice Michael H Tulloch; March 26, noon-1pm; McLennan Ross Hall (LC231/237); University of Alberta


Chief Justice Michael H. Tulloch will deliver the 2025 Merv Leitch QC Memorial Lecture on March 26 to the University of Alberta Faculty of Law. The lecture will be offered both in-person and virtually.

Chief Justice Tulloch was appointed Chief Justice of Ontario and President of the Court of Appeal for Ontario on December 15, 2022. Prior to his appointment as Chief Justice, Justice Tulloch served 19 years as a judge. First, 9 years as a trial judge on the Superior Court of Justice, where he was first appointed in September 2003, and secondly, he served 10 years as an appellate judge on the Court of Appeal for Ontario, elevated in June 2012.

In 2016, Chief Justice Tulloch was appointed by the Ontario government to conduct important reviews which resulted in two extensive reports: the Report of the Independent Police Oversight Review (2017) and the Report of the Independent Street Checks Review (2018). He served on the Government Response Team for the Commission on Systemic Racism while working as a Crown Attorney. He was Chair of a review panel on Osgoode Hall Law School’s admissions policy in 2006.

Chief Justice Tulloch served as a member of the Ontario Superior Court Education Committee, the National Judicial Institute, and the Commissioner’s Judicial Advisory Committee on International Engagement. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Centre of Law and Policy at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University). He is also a Distinguished Fellow at McLaughlin College, York University. He was a founding member and a patron of the Second Chance Scholarship Foundation and Chair of the Advisory Board to the Black Business and Professional Association. He has been a frequent speaker in various post-secondary institutions as well as professional and community forums.

Chief Justice Tulloch was born in Jamaica. He holds a B.A. from York University and a LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School. He has also received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the Toronto Metropolitan University, the University of Guelph, and the Law Society of Ontario, as well as an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Tyndale University and Seminary. He was admitted to the Bar of Ontario in 1991.

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The Merv Leitch, QC, Memorial Lecture

The Leitch Lecture has been a tradition in the Faculties of Law at the U of A and the U of C since 1991. It honours the late Merv Leitch, QC, ‘52 BA, LLB. The late Peter Lougheed and other friends and associates of Leitch created an endowment that funds the lecture to honor the significant contributions he made while serving his fellow Albertans.

In addition to serving in the Royal Canadian Navy, Leitch was also a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1971 to 1982, serving as attorney general, provincial treasurer and minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

Outside of his time in politics, Leitch was a partner with Macleod Dixon (now Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP) in Calgary, served as president of the Calgary Bar Association and as a bencher of the Law Society of Alberta.