Memorable Manitobans: Robert Brian Dickson (1916-1998)

Judge.

Born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan on 25 May 1916, Dickson attended the University of Manitoba law school and in 1940 was called to the Manitoba bar. During World War Two he served with the Royal Canadian Artillery, losing a leg. After the war he lectured in law at the University of Manitoba and practised law at the firm of Aikins and MacAulay until his appointment to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench in 1963.

In 1950 he headed the Red Cross relief operation during the catastrophic Winnipeg flood. He served as chair of the University of Manitoba’s Board of Governors in the mid-1960s. He joined the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 1967 and the Canadian Supreme Court in 1973, serving as Chief Justice from 1984 to 1990. In the 1970s he, Bora Laskin, and Wishart Spence were a liberal force on the Supreme Court, often called “LSD” by the press. Dickson was a supporter of individual and collective rights, both before and after the Charter of Rights of 1982. He chaired several royal commissions. He served as President of the Law Society of Manitoba from 1962 to 1963, and was a member of the Advisory Board for the Winnipeg Foundation. He was inducted into the Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt (1961), the Order of Canada (1991), and he was awarded with honorary doctorates from the University of Manitoba (1973) and the University of Winnipeg (1991).

He was a member of the Lakewood Country Club and brother-in-law of George H. Sellers.

He died near Ottawa on 17 October 1998.

See also:

Brian Dickson: A Judge’s Journey by Robert J. Sharpe and Kent Roach, University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Sources:

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 11 June 2013

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