934 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 6 NOVEMBER 2021
John has been an active volunteer with a variety of legal organizations
and his daughter’s school. For many years, he volunteered as a judge in the
PLTC civil trial moot. He has authored articles and presented at programs
through CLEBC and the TLABC. He served on the executive of the CBABC
Vancouver Civil Litigation subsection, the TLABC’s Rules Committee and
for several years on the TLABC’s board of directors. He was one of the guest
editors for the British Columbia Courthouse Library Society’s Clicklaw Wikibooks
publication for several years. He also served as a member of the
Attorney General’s B.C. Supreme Court Rules Committee.
I met John at the beginning of our second year of undergraduate studies
at the University of Saskatchewan. We were assigned to the same apartment
in a student residence. John and I were two of six young men assigned to
that apartment. At the time, John was contemplating a degree in computer
science. John’s calm, quiet demeanour made him a great roommate. His
fun-loving attitude and keen sense of humour made him a pleasure to
socialize with. His intellect made him an ideal person to proofread any
paper I needed to complete for my courses. He approached that task with a
thoughtfulness, patience and thoroughness that I could not have reasonably
expected, and as a result, I found myself having to defend my thoughts in
lengthy, challenging but interesting debates with him. I can’t help but think
those debates played a part in John transferring the focus of his studies
from computer science to public administration.
Although we were assigned to different apartments the following year,
John and I remained friends. We enjoyed playing hockey on the same team
and socializing in overlapping friend groups. John’s love of movies and
books exposed me to art I would not have otherwise come across. John was
always a valuable teammate, colleague and friend.
For reasons I cannot understand, John chose to pursue the study of law
at the University of Alberta rather than the University of Saskatchewan. He
excelled in his studies, joining the law review and volunteering in several
clinics through Student Legal Services. John completed his legal studies at
the U of A in 1991.
During our second year of law school, John mentioned the matching program
used by students and firms in Vancouver. As a result of that, I applied
for articling positions in Vancouver. John and I agreed that we would again
share an apartment during articles. By then I was married, and the plan was
that John, my wife and I would live together. It was just after we found an
apartment that my wife and I learned we were expecting. I duly contacted
John and gave him the news. Without hesitation, he agreed to share a place
with a newborn baby.