Frank Iacobucci (born June 29, 1937) is a former Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 until he retired from the bench in 2004. He was the first Italian-Canadian judge on the court. Iacobucci was also the first judge on the Supreme Court to have been born, raised and educated in British Columbia. Iacobucci has had a distinguished career in private practice, academia, the civil service and the judiciary.
Early life
Iacobucci was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to working-class Italian immigrants, Gabriel Iacobucci and Rosina Pirillo. His father emigrated from Abruzzo in 1922 and his mother emigrated from Calabria in 1925. He was the third of four children and attended Britannia Secondary School. In high school he worked in a steel foundry alongside his father and was inspired by the story of Angelo Branca to pursue law. While attending the University of British Columbia, he became a brother of Phi Gamma Delta.
He received a Master of Laws (LL.M) degree in 1964 and a diploma in international law (Dip Int'L) in 1966, both from the University of Cambridge.
Career
Iacobucci practiced corporate law and related fields at Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood in New York City from 1964 until 1967.
Taking a chance to pursue a career in academia, he was an associate professor and then a professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law between 1967 and 1985. He subsequently served as associate dean of the faculty from 1973 to 1975, and was a visiting fellow at Wolfson College in 1978. He served as dean of the faculty from 1979 to 1983. He also acted as vice-president and provost of the university from November 1983 to September 1985. From 1982 to 1985, Iacobucci was also a commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and was counsel to the Estey Commission in 1974. Just three years after entering the civil service, in September 1988, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Federal Court.
He is the chair of the Dean's Advisory Committee for the National Centre for Business Law at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law.
He sat on a number of board of directors, including Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star and a series of smaller newspapers, and owner of Harlequin Enterprises, a global publisher of popular romance novels. Iacobucci is the former chairman of Torstar.
Iacobucci served as the commissioner of an internal inquiry into the role of Canadian officials in the torture and detention of three Arab-Canadians in Syria and Egypt as the personal appointee of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. The report concludes that deficient information-sharing by CSIS and the RCMP likely contributed indirectly to the detention of Mr. Nureddin and Mr. Elaati, and that similar sharing of information likely contributed to the mistreatment amounting to torture of all three. The report, released in February, 2013, determined under-representation of individuals living on reserves on Ontario's jury roll to be a symptom of a crisis. He expressed hope his report would serve as a wake-up call to remedy broader and systemic issues that are at the heart of the current dysfunctional relationship between Ontario's justice system and Aboriginal peoples in the province. In addition to 17 specific recommendations, Iacobucci emphasized the need for establishing a government-to-government relationship that "incorporates an underlying respect for cultural, traditional, and historical values that are different." He stated, "This
government-to-government relationship... must underlie the relationship between Ontario and First Nations going forward in dealing with justice and jury representation issues."
From 2006 to 2012, he was involved with the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. He joined the advisory board of General Motors of Canada in 2006, where he continues to serve to this day. At the same time, he was the lead director at Tim Hortons until 2014.
From 2006 to 2007, he was a Trudeau Foundation mentor.
On August 28, 2013, in response to the July 27, 2013 shooting death of Sammy Yatim by Toronto Police officer James Forcillo, Iacobucci was requested by Chief of Police Bill Blair to conduct an independent review of "the policies, practices, and procedures of, and the services provided by, the TPS concerning the use of lethal force or potentially lethal force, in particular in encounters with persons who are or may be emotionally disturbed, mentally disturbed or cognitively impaired.". On July 24, 2014, the "Police Encounters with People in Crisis – An Independent Review Conducted by The Honourable Frank Iacobucci for Chief of Police William Blair, Toronto Police Service" report was delivered and was released to the public by Chief Blair. The 400+ page report made 84 recommendations pertaining to the mental health system and Toronto Police and focusing on police culture, training, supervision, and selection of new officers, the mental health of police personnel, use of force, crisis intervention, and equipment, along with suggestions surrounding implementation of the reports recommendations. The report, originally arranged by Blair under his authority as chief, without Toronto Police Services Board approval, was contracted through the Toronto law firm of Torys LLP for the $500,000.00 maximum funding amount the chief was authorized to approve without board approval; in May 2014, after the majority of the work had been performed, the chief requested, and the board ultimately approved, the revised cost for the report of $985,000.00.
From 2014 to 2017, he was a member of the board of directors for the Canadians for a New Partnership.
In November 2015, the Government of Alberta retained Iacobucci to conduct an independent review of—and advice in connection with—the decision of former Alberta Ethics Commissioner Neil Wilkinson to clear former Alberta premier Alison Redford of conflict of interest charges under Alberta's Conflicts of Interest Act resulting from Redford having awarded the contract for a multibillion-dollar contract to conduct litigation against tobacco companies on behalf of the Government to a Calgary law firm for which her former husband was a partner while she was Minister of Justice. The report affirmed the concern that had been raised by the opposition that Mr. Wilkinson had not had necessary information available to him in reaching the decision, particularly his being refused access to an Alberta Justice briefing note that listed the law firm as the last of three that should be considered. In February / March 2019 media reports noted that Iacobucci had been retained by SNC-Lavalin, concurrent with the company's controversial efforts to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement to avoid a trial for allegedly bribing Saadi Gaddafi to win engineering and construction contracts in Libya, before the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.
Currently, he is a member of the board of directors with COSTI Immigration Services and has been since 2009.
Honorary degrees and other awards
Iacobucci was appointed a Queen's Counsel, which changed to King's Counsel automatically upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles III on 8 September 2022.
Iacobucci has received numerous awards, medals, honours, and other recognition from across Canada and from organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy. and University of Ontario Institute of Technology (2018). In the same year, he was named Man of the Year by the Canadian-Italian Business and Professional Association of Toronto. The National Congress of Italian Canadians awarded him the Ordine al Merito in 1989.
In 1993, he received the Commendatore dell'Ordine Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, the highest honour presented by the Italian Republic. He was also awarded the Medaglia d'Argento del Presidente della Repubblica Italiana in 2000. In Montreal, the Ordre des Fils d'Italie au Canada granted Iacobucci the Lion d'Or Award in 1995. That same year, the Federation of Clubs Cosentini of Ontario presented him with the Cosentino dell'Anno Award. Iacobucci also acquired the Canadian-Italian National Award back in the year 2000. He was granted the Premio Italia nel Mondo/Italy in the World Award the following year. In 2002, he was presented with the Valigia d'Oro Award.
Iacobucci was given Honorary Citizenship to municipalities: Magone, Cosenza (1996) and Cepegatti, Pescara (2001), both located in Italy.
The fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta presented him with the Distinguished Fiji Award in 1987.
On behalf of the Governor General of Canada, Iacobucci was awarded the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal in 1992.
The Brotherhood Interfaith Society named him Man of the Year in 1999.
The Frank Iacobucci Centre for Italian Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto was named in his honour.
In 2002, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.
In 2007, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In the same year, and then again in February 2017, Iacobucci held the James R. Bullock Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies, which enhances the field of Canadian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Israel. He then met with academic leaders, professors, and students of the Hebrew University and of Tel Aviv University.
In 2009, Iacobucci received a star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On October 2, 2009, he was awarded the Justice Medal for lifetime achievement from the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice.
In 2012, Iacobucci was honoured with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Additionally, he was appointed an Honorary Witness by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in April 2014.