It’s extraordinary to think that the Honourable L. Yves Fortier’s first notable press appearance was on the cover of Montreal’s crime rag Allô Police for his criminal law skills. Fortunately, he took another path.
Fortier, BCL’58, went on to become one of the world’s foremost international arbitrators, arguing and pleading over 300 cases with the law firm Ogilvy Renault (later Norton Rose Fulbright), and then as an independent arbitrator and mediator at Cabinet Yves Fortier since 2012. Fortier also served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1988 to 1992 and as Canada’s representative on the Security Council for two years. It was a heady era, when the Berlin Wall fell and Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, marking the beginning of the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
Now he is adding yet another accolade to his very long list of accomplishments: the McGill Alumni Association's Award of Merit. “Yves is such a deserving recipient of the McGill Alumni Association’s highest honour,” says Marc Weinstein, Vice President of University Advancement. “In addition to his stellar international legal career and public service as a Canadian diplomat, Yves has been a wonderful champion of McGill and the Faculty of Law, helping to advance the University’s mission in countless ways.”
Fortier, raised in Quebec City and educated by Jesuits at Collège Sainte-Marie, first attended Université de Montréal, but chose to pursue his Law studies at McGill, at his father’s urging. Though worried about studying in English, his dad was reassuring, saying his classmates had “never done any law in English either, so you’ll learn at the same time!”
As a McGill Law student, it was clear that Fortier was destined for big things. He was president of the Law Undergraduate Society, a member of the McGill Debating Union, on the editorial board of the McGill Law Journal, and was awarded the Scarlet Key in 1957.
McGill is also where Fortier met Carol, his wife of 65 years. It was her father who recommended Fortier apply for a Rhodes Scholarship (perhaps to distance him from his daughter, Fortier jokes).
Engaged before he went to Oxford (B Litt. 1960), Carol and Fortier married when he came back for the holidays. Together, they raised a son, Michel, born in Oxford; and two daughters, Suzanne and Margot, born in Montreal. They have eight grandchildren.
After Oxford, Fortier started at Ogilvy Renault, where his early pro bono work included successfully defending a man accused of robbing a bank. The next day, Allô Police proclaimed Fortier the next top criminal defence lawyer in town! Since the firm’s client list included The Royal Bank of Canada, Fortier was asked to stop defending alleged bank robbers. (Fortier later became a Director of The Royal Bank of Canada.)
As a trial lawyer, Fortier has argued cases before all courts in Canada. He’s argued on behalf of Canada with respect to maritime boundaries in the Atlantic concerning the U.S., and France; the Pacific Salmon Treaty with the U.S.; and for Nova Scotia concerning its boundary with Newfoundland and Labrador.
Fortier has also arbitrated internationally from Singapore to Paris, including on behalf of the UN Secretary General as Special Envoy to Malaysia, and as mediator in the boundary dispute between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. As an adjudicator, he served as a judge in disputes between Bahrain and Qatar; Colombia and Nicaragua; Ireland and the UK, and in the Eurotunnel dispute.
Other legal roles include being a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, president of the London Court of International Arbitration, and chair of the World Bank’s Sanctions Board. In 2013, he was sworn in to the Privy Council of Canada.
A keen skier and a former competitive tennis player, Fortier was also on the Court of Arbitration for Sport (he arbitrated Lance Armstrong’s doping charges, among other cases). He attended the Salt Lake City and the Vancouver Olympics as a member of the Court of Arbitration, though not as an athlete as he may have once dreamed.
Fortier took a break from law when he was appointed to the UN post by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a friend since their early days at Ogilvy Renault. “I respected him, even though we were not of the same political ilk,” Fortier says.
“The telephone was invented for Brian Mulroney,” Fortier jokes. “He would call me all hours of the day or night to discuss issues. It was amazing how well versed he was in what was happening at the UN.”
Fortier has received honorary doctorates from over a half-dozen Canadian universities, including McGill, and delivered lectures at conferences all over the world.
“McGill has been good to me,” he says. “If you feel you owe something to an institution, you try to give some back, if in a position when you can afford it. I have very modestly.”
Fortier is being modest about his many contributions to McGill. He co-chaired Campaign McGill: History in the Making, which raised more than $1 billion – the first university in Canada to break the magic billion-dollar mark. From 1975 to 1985, he served on McGill’s Board of Governors and as Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute. Since 2013, he has sat on the board of trustees of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
His work has been recognized at the Faculty of Law with the L. Yves Fortier Chair in International Arbitration and International Commercial Law, funded by Rio Tinto Alcan.
In 2009, Fortier funded the John E.C. Brierley Memorial Lectures, named for a former dean who specialized in arbitration. He also created the Faculty of Law’s largest entrance scholarship ($10,000) for a student who is committed to bilingualism, as Fortier has always been. As well, he funded a 12-month clerkship for recent or current students at the Court of Arbitration in the Hague.
At age 89, Fortier spends his time in Montreal with Carol, reading (recently Robert Kagan’s U.S. early-20th century history, The Ghost at the Feast) and listening to music (opera or jazz, depending on his mood). A serious quadricep injury five years ago curtailed his skiing and tennis, but now he settles for good long walks and exercise on his stationary bicycle, treadmill and elliptical. “I do as much physical exercise as I can.”
Though Fortier has accomplished so very much over the years, when asked what he’s most proud of in his life, he replies unhesitatingly, “My wife and three children, that’s the absolute truth.”