Ian Mulgrew: Laid flat by 2009 road-rage death, man with hopes to be Ontario premier returns to B.C. as head of Legal Aid
Michael Bryant takes up jobs as CEO of Legal Aid B.C. in January
Once considered a contender to be premier of Ontario, a chastened Michael Bryant is returning to his home province to lead Legal Aid B.C.
The 55-year-old former cabinet minister with the Dalton McGuinty Liberal provincial government, brought low by a highly publicized road-rage death, will replace the Legal Aid CEO, Mark Benton, in a generational change of leadership.
As head of Legal Aid for the past two decades, Benton dealt with savage budget cuts imposed at the turn of the century by a B.C. Liberal government, providing services on a shoestring and regularly cajoling underpaid lawyers to work for the needy.
He steered the organization through those storms and today it faces different challenges helping about 27,000 people annually with a much-more-supportive NDP administration in Victoria.
Attorney General David Eby sent more money, cut a deal with the Association of Legal Aid lawyers and transferred to an Aboriginal agency provision of some legal services to Indigenous people, sadly the largest group in need.
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For the past four years, Bryant has been executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
“During Michael’s tenure, the CCLA has modernized and grown in many ways,” Andrew Lokan, chair of the board, said. “We have never been in a stronger position to fulfill our mandate to protect the civil liberties of all Canadians. We are very grateful for all he has done, and wish him the best in his new role.”
At first blush, the appointment might seem odd — another entitled white man hired to run an organization whose impoverished clientele includes minorities, Indigenous people and the vulnerable.
But Bryant comes with an over-achiever’s resumé, governance skills and, importantly, an especially relevant personal trauma and experience that gives him a unique, pertinent perspective.
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Raised on Vancouver Island where his father Ray was mayor of Esquimalt from 1966 to 1969, Bryant earned a B.A. and master’s degrees from the University of B.C. He graduated in 1992 from Osgoode Hall Law School and earned an LL.M. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1994.
A Fulbright Fellow, he clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada, later joining Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City, lecturing in law at King’s College London in England and practising at McCarthy Tétrault. In 1997, he also became an adjunct professor in international law at the University of Toronto before entering provincial politics.
Defeating future Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne Bryant for the nomination in the downtown Toronto riding of St. Paul’s, Bryant trounced the incumbent Progressive Conservative cabinet minister by almost 5,000 votes and would hold the riding for a decade.
