Yves Fortier (lawyer)

In 2015, Fortier was one of seventeen past-presidents of the Canadian Bar Association who wrote an open letter to the Globe and Mail, criticising plans to locate a proposed Memorial to the Victims of Communism immediately adjacent to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Late in 2015, the federal government announced that it would move the proposed memorial to a different location.

In 2014, the panel ruled on the merits of the claim and ruled in favour of the shareholders. The panel awarded more than US$50 billion to the shareholders, the largest award ever made by an international arbitration panel. However, Russia then applied to the District Court of The Hague to have the awards set aside. In 2016, the District Court ruled that the panel did not have jurisdiction under the Energy Charter Treaty, and set aside the award. It is now under appeal to The Hague Court of Appeal for a full de novo hearing, which could take several years.

In 2014, the Committee announced that Fortier would chair a panel conducting an inquiry into a complaint that CSIS had spied on citizens conducting peaceful protests over the proposed Keystone oil pipeline. That in turn triggered a request from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, one of the parties to the complaint, that Fortier recuse himself because he had formerly sat on the board of Trans Canada Pipelines, which was now one of the proponents of the project, and also held a large number of shares in that company. However, Fortier declined to recuse himself and the hearing went ahead as scheduled in Vancouver in 2015.

In 2014, Fortier was one of eleven past-presidents of the CBA who intervened in a dispute between the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, and the Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, over the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Prime Minister criticised the Chief Justice, alleging that she had acted improperly. The CBA past-presidents defended her actions, as did the then-President, Fred Headon.

On August 8, 2013, Fortier was appointed to a five-year term on the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the federal watchdog over the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. For this reason, he was sworn in as a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on the same day.

In the fall of 2013, the federal government appointed Justice Nadon of the Federal Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. Although he was sworn in, an issue arose whether he was eligible to be appointed under the terms of the Supreme Court Act. In the spring of 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that Justice Nadon was not eligible to be appointed, because he was on the Federal Court of Appeal rather than on a Quebec superior court, as required by the Supreme Court Act. After the Supreme Court's decision, the Prime Minister publicly criticised the Chief Justice, saying that she had behaved improperly in speaking of the qualification issue during a consultation about the appointment some nine months earlier, with the Minister of Justice, Peter MacKay.

After leaving Ogilvy Renault, in 2012 Fortier joined Arbitration Place in Toronto and is currently a Member Arbitrator. He is also a member of 20 Essex Street in London, a commercial barristers and arbitrators chambers.

In June 2012, Fortier was appointed chair of the World Bank Group's Sanctions Board in order to help combat corruption and fraud in projects financed by the World Bank.

On November 15, 2010, Ogilvy Renault LLP joined with London-based law firm Norton Rose. In 2011, citing potential conflicts of interest posed by the expansion of the firm's clientele, Fortier left Norton Rose and established his own firm in order to continue his career as an international arbitrator independently.

The arbitration involved a major dispute between the shareholders of Yukos, a Russian energy company, and the government of Russia. The shareholders argued that the Russian government had improperly expropriated the company, allegedly to satisfy unpaid back-taxes. The arbitration was argued under the Energy Charter Treaty. In 2009, the panel held that it had jurisdiction to hear the complaint.

In 2009, Fortier set up an entrance scholarship and made a substantial donation to fund a lecturer series at McGill Law School. The L. Yves Fortier Entrance Scholarship is an annual $10,000 scholarship for a first year law student who displays a commitment to bilingualism, as Fortier himself did as a law student. The scholarship is funded by a donation of $200,000 which Fortier gave to the law school.

Also in 2009, the firm and partners at Ogilvy Renault gave a combined gift of $1 million to the McGill Law School, to support the Ogilvy Renault Faculty Scholars in Arbitration in Commercial Law. Fortier's personal share of the donation was $250,000.

In addition, Fortier gave a donation of $50,000 to fund the John E.C. Brierley Memorial Lectures. In 2003, Fortier had been the first speaker in the lecture series, which was named after a former dean of McGill Law School who worked in the area of arbitration.

In 2002, while serving on the board of Nortel, Fortier was the subject of a conflict of interest controversy as he both sat on the board and provided billed legal services to the company. He stepped down from the board in 2005 during an accounting scandal.

Fortier was also active in business affairs, and he was involved with several major corporations. From 1997 to 2006, he was Governor (company chairman) of the Hudson's Bay Company, North America's oldest company (established by English royal charter in 1670). Fortier was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the aluminum company Alcan Inc. from 2002 to 2007, prior to its acquisition by Rio Tinto, becoming Rio Tinto Alcan. He also served as a director of several other publicly traded corporations, including Royal Bank of Canada, Trans Canada Pipelines Limited, Dupont Canada Inc., Westinghouse Canada Inc., Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and Nortel.

In 1993, Fortier was asked to investigate a controversy at the Hockey Hall of Fame. The outgoing president of the National Hockey League, Gil Stein, had been elected to the Hall, but rumours arose that he had put undue pressure to ensure his induction. Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, retained Fortier and an American lawyer, Arnold Burns, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, to review the issue. In their report, they concluded that Stein had "improperly manipulated the process" and "created the false appearance and illusion" that the owner of the Los Angeles Kings, Bruce McNall, had put Stein's name forward. Stein denied this suggestion and argued that it had been McNall's idea. Nonetheless, the upshot was that Stein withdrew his nomination.

In 1988, Fortier was contacted by his old law partner, now Prime Minister Mulroney, who offered him an appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada. Fortier turned it down, explaining later: "Juge à la Cour suprême, ça n'était pas dans mon ADN. Vivre comme un moine. Fréquenter les mêmes huit personnes. Sans pouvoir lâcher son fou. Non merci." ("Judge on the Supreme Court, that wasn't in my DNA. Living like a monk. Hanging out with the same eight people. Not being able to let loose. No thanks.") Although the fact that he declined an appointment is now public knowledge, he has said that he would have preferred that the story never have leaked out.

After Fortier turned down the appointment to the Supreme Court, Mulroney instead offered to appoint him as Canada's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Fortier accepted the position and served for four years, from 1988 to 1992. From 1989 until 1990, he was also Canada's representative to the UN Security Council and in October 1989 was the President of the Security Council. Fortier was Canada's principal delegate to four sessions of the General Assembly, including serving as Vice-President at one of those sessions.

From 1984 to 1989, Fortier was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration located at The Hague, Netherlands. From 1998 to 2001, he served as President of the London Court of International Arbitration.

The resolution called for the Constitution to be re-written "so as better to meet the aspriations and present-day needs of all the people of Canada and to guarantee the preservation of the historical rights of our two founding cultures." The resolution also set out the mandate for the Committee, which was to undertake "the search for a definition of the essential constitutional attributes of a Canadian federalism", with a final report to be presented at the next Annual Meeting of the CBA in 1978. Following the passage of the resolution, the new president of the CBA, Jacques Viau, set up the Committee. The members were drawn from each province of Canada, and included two future provincial premiers, a future Supreme Court justice, two future provincial chief justices. Fortier was the member from Quebec.

The Committee released its report at the next annual meeting of the CBA at Halifax in 1978. The Committee made wide-ranging recommendations for constitutional change, including a completely new constitution, abolishing the monarchy, changing the Senate, entrenching language rights and a bill of rights, and changing the balance of powers between the federal government and the provinces.

At the national meeting of the CBA in 1977, following the election of the PQ the previous year, the outgoing national president, Boyd Ferris, proposed that the CBA should declare itself in support of national unity and a strong federal government. A resolution to that effect was introduced by Paul Fraser, the president of the British Columbia Branch of the CBA and seconded by Robert Lesage, the president of the Quebec Branch.

Fortier was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1976. In 2007, he was appointed Avocat émérite (Ad.E.) by the Barreau du Québec, one of the first recipients of the award.

Fortier has been active in the Canadian Bar Association throughout his career, at both the provincial and national levels. From 1975 to 1976, he was the president of the Quebec Branch of the CBA. Then, from 1982 to 1983, he was the national president of the CBA.

The mid-1970s were a turbulent time in Canadian and Quebec politics. Fortier and the CBA played a part in the constitutional debate triggered by the election of the separatist Parti québécois government of René Lévesque in the provincial election of 1976.

In 1961, he was called to the Quebec bar. He joined the well-known firm of Ogilvy Renault, where he practised for half a century. While at Ogilvy Renault, he developed a friendship with another young lawyer, Brian Mulroney, who went on to be Prime Minister of Canada. Fortier served as Chairman of Ogilvy Renault from 1992 to 2009. He left the firm on good terms in 2011 to establish a solo international arbitration practice.

Fortier was awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1958, for two years. At that time, Rhodes scholars were required to be single and to live in a college at Oxford. He and Carol deferred their marriage for a year, with his commitment to her that he would try to get the regulation changed. In his first major advocacy, he and some other Rhodes scholars in similar situations were able to persuade the Prefect of Rhodes House to change the rule. He and Carol married in 1959. The next year, he received his Bachelor of Letters degree from the University of Oxford.

Louis Yves Fortier PC CC OQ KC (born September 11, 1935) is a Canadian diplomat, trial and appellate lawyer, arbitrator and corporate director. He served as the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations from August 1988 to December 1991. In August 2013, he became a member of the Security Intelligence Review Committee and the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. He also served as the national president of the Canadian Bar Association from 1982 to 1983.

Fortier was born in Quebec City in 1935. His father was a regional service agent for passengers on the Canadian Pacific Railway. After Fortier earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université de Montréal in 1955 and was considering a legal career, his father encouraged him to apply to the law school at McGill University in Montreal to improve his English. At that time, McGill taught in English only. When Fortier said he was worried about learning law in English, his father said: "Yves, les anglophones assis à côté de toi, ils n'ont jamais fait de droit en anglais non plus". ("Yves, the anglophones sitting beside you will have never learned law in English either.") Fortier applied to McGill and was accepted, and then successfully persuaded the McGill faculty that he should be able to sit his examinations in French. He graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from McGill in 1958.