574 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 4 JULY 2021
his son, Alex, to ask for assistance with one task or another. It extended to
getting his TV or his remote-control device to work. It could be something
as simple as replacing the batteries in the remote-control device. They in
turn thought nothing of dropping whatever they might have been doing to
drive over to address whatever problem Mike was having.
Sadly, Mike never got to walk again, or enjoy the freedom and independence
he once had. But I never heard him complain about his situation, only
that he was determined to walk one day. As Marilyn Sandford commented,
“At my last visit, Mike mused about what might be necessary for him to get
back into practice, and it struck me how much he missed the life and held
onto hope that it might return.” It was not to be.
But Mike was resilient in his own way. As Jay Fogel observed, cancer, a
heart attack or multiple strokes couldn’t kill him. “It took the insidious
COVID-19 to do him in.”
That was Mike.
He will be sorely missed by his family, as well as by his many friends.
The Honourable Judge Pedro de Couto (retired)
Thomas R. Berger, O.C., O.B.C., Q.C.
On April 28, 2021, the legal profession lost one of its
most unique, influential and well-loved members.
Tom Berger, at age 88, was still fully engaged in the
law, having argued an Aboriginal rights case in the
Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in December. He did
not live to learn the result.
Tom was the second of four children of Maurice
Theodore (Ted) and Perle Berger. Ted was the son of a judge in Sweden and
spoke multiple languages. The judge had strong views as to what Ted should
make of his life. Ted had other views. He left for Canada at the age of 19 or
20. Almost 50 years passed before, at Tom’s urging, Ted reconnected with
his family in Sweden. The two branches of the family discovered that there
are lawyers in both countries, and they now have regular family reunions
via Zoom.