Personal Reflection. Fostering connection, creating community

• Author: The Honourable Harriet Sachs
• Pages: 87-92

87

R PERSONAL REFLECTION | SUMMER 2010

Fstering cnnectin, creating

cmmunity

THE HONOURABLE HARRIET SACHS

Thank you for this great honour. I am overwhelmed, and when

I am overwhelmed my usual response is to retreat into a book, not

give a speech. I love to read, but if I get to choose, my books come

with happy endings. I have learned that life does not always deliver happy

endings; however, if you’re lucky, it can deliver wonderful moments. For

me, this is one of those moments, not only because of the honour I have

received but because I get to share it with all of you and, most particu-

larly, my eldest daughter, Emma, who is being called to the bar today.

I look at you and I see myself, sitting in what was then the O’Keefe

Centre, waiting to be called up to the stage. I remember that my feet hurt

and that the collar of my court shirt felt way too tight. I don’t remem-

ber feeling triumphant, but I do remember feeling unsure and scared–

unsure about my choice of profession, and scared because, having made

that choice, I could not see how I would ever nd my way in a profession

that had not yet made a place for women.

When I started law school my class of 300 was divided into sections

of 60. My section had three women. I had never had a woman law pro-

fessor, and when I articled at a medium-sized downtown law rm there

was one woman associate. When I got called to the bar, there were a

handful of women on the trial benches; there had never been a woman

appointed to the Court of Appeal of any province, and there had never

been a woman on the Supreme Court of Canada.