Standing Up For What's Right

As a lawyer, he played a role in one of the Supreme Court's most important decisions on human rights. Now, Douglas Stollery, '76 LLB, sees retirement as an opportunity to give even more back in every way he can.

It is typical of Douglas Stollery that, as he considers his imminent retirement, his main concern isn't what exotic locales to visit or how many rounds of golf he will get in. Rather, he's wondering how he can do some good in the world.

"I hope to find some way of using the knowledge I've acquired over 60 years to help make the world a better place," he says.

Although he now works for the company - PCL Construction - that his father, Robert, '49 BSc(Eng), '85 LLD(Honorary), led and shaped, and although he has embraced the philanthropy so important to his parents, Stollery has followed his own path, beginning with his decision to study law. Why law? "Probably more from the process of elimination than anything else," he says. "I really didn't know much about lawyers and the law."

It turned out to be a good decision. "Every day since has reconfirmed that it was the right choice for me," he says

The silver medallist in his class, Stollery spent a year clerking at the Supreme Court of Canada before earning a master's degree from Harvard Law School and then returning to Edmonton to practise with Reynolds Mirth Richards & Farmer LLP. During his career, he has been honoured as a fellow of the Canadian College of Construction Lawyers, has been designated a Queen's Counsel and recently won the lifetime achievement award from the Canadian General Counsel Association. He has also contributed to his profession in various leadership roles, including serving on the national executive of the Canadian Bar Association and as president of its Alberta branch.

In addition to his many accomplishments in day-to-day professional practice, Stollery's most noted contribution to Canadian law came when he volunteered. In the early 1990s, when Delwin Vriend, an instructor at King's College in Edmonton who had been fired because he was gay, was denied a remedy under Alberta human rights legislation, Stollery asked what he could do to help.

A lot, as it turned out. At the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, Stollery served as Vriend's co-counsel, arguing that Alberta's human rights legislation was unconstitutional because it did not include protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The resulting Supreme Court decision, which amended the Alberta legislation to include protection on the basis of sexual orientation, is now recognized as one of the most important decisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 2006, Stollery, who had done work for PCL in his private practice, accepted a position as the company's general counsel and corporate secretary. He has had the opportunity to continue to shape the evolution of public-private partnerships in Canada. He was also involved in the deliberations of the G20 High Level Panel on Infrastructure Investment when PCL and its president, Paul Douglas, were invited to serve on the panel, which had a mandate to reduce world poverty through infrastructure development.

When Stollery retires later this year, international development is one area in which he plans to look for volunteer opportunities. Human rights is another.

"Each of us has an obligation to help in whatever way we can," he says.

And he, for one, takes that obligation seriously.