The Honourable David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announced June 1, the judicial appointment of Faculty of Law graduate, Dr. Gerald Heckman (LLB 1995), to the Federal Court of Appeal.
Justice Gerald Heckman earned his Masters of Applied Science in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1992 and graduated from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law in 1995. He was admitted to the Ontario bar in 1998. He also holds a doctorate in law from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School (2008).
Justice Heckman is fluent in English and French. He taught administrative law, constitutional law and language rights at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law from 2006 to 2023. A recipient of several faculty and university teaching and service awards, he served as co-director of the Concentration in Access to Justice in French. Prior to that, he had practised labour, employment, and human rights law at a national firm after serving as a law clerk at the Federal Court of Canada. Justice Heckman has published extensively in the areas of administrative and constitutional law. He was general editor of Administrative Law — Cases, Text and Materials, 8th ed (Emond) and contributed to other leading English- and French-language legal texts and casebooks.
Justice Heckman served on the boards of several national organizations, including the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals and the Canadian Association of Law Teachers. He regularly participated as a faculty member in judicial education seminars on administrative law organized by the National Judicial Institute and Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice. Justice Heckman served as a board member and president of the Association des juristes d’expression française du Manitoba, where he promoted initiatives to enhance access to justice in both official languages.
Read the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada announcement
