Ronald Dale Gibson

The family of Ronald Dale Gibson is saddened to announce his death at the age of 88 in Edmonton, Alberta on January 29, 2022, after a short illness and hospital stay, which was exacerbated by recently contracting COVID-19. He was predeceased by his mother Anna and father Ben Gibson of Winnipeg, Manitoba, his sister Carol Bernsten (Allen) of Oliver, British Columbia, and his nephew Remy Smith of Winnipeg.

Dale was born May l7, 1933 in Winnipeg and grew up in the suburb of East Kildonan. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1954 from United College (now the University of Winnipeg) having served as student president in his final year. He graduated from the Manitoba Law School (now the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba) in 1958 with a Bachelor of Laws degree and was awarded the Law Society and University gold medals. Dale then received a scholarship to the Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with a Master of Laws degree in 1959.

Dale had a lengthy and distinguished academic career, as a Professor of Law at the Manitoba Law School and University of Manitoba from 1959 to 1991, and later also at the University of Alberta in the capacity of Belzberg Professor of Constitutional Studies, (1988-1991), Bowker Professor of Law (1991-1993) and Belzberg Fellow of Constitutional Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta (1993-2001). He was a brilliant law teacher and an exceptional champion of his clients in all levels of Canadian courts. His first appearance in court as a young lawyer was in the Supreme Court of Canada, where he not only won the case for his client but was also handed a laudatory note afterwards from one of the Justices.

Dale was an inaugural member of Manitoba's Law Reform Commission, and later chaired that province's Human Rights Commission. Recognition of his work led to him being designated “Distinguished Professor” and “Distinguished Professor Emeritus” by the University of Manitoba. He was an executive member of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Foundation (LEAF), an organization that probably had as much influence as any other on the early judicial interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1985) and actively practiced law in Manitoba from 1959 to 1991 and in Alberta from 1991 until his retirement in 2008, acting regularly as a constitutional consultant to the governments of Canada, Manitoba, and Yukon, as well as to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, for which he wrote the portion of the Commission's final report dealing with Canada's Métis population. 

Dale was a prolific author and an accomplished legal historian, authoring, co­ authoring, or editing numerous books and articles on a wide variety of topics ranging from Constitutional Law to Legal History, Tort Law, Privacy Law, and other topics. His two books on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were among the earliest to be published on that subject. In 2015, he published a massive study of law, government and life on the Canadian prairies under the Hudson's Bay Company before Confederation.

Art loomed large among Dale's non-professional interests. He visited art museums wherever his travels took him, and relished drawing and painting on his own throughout his life; Dale often said that the once-a-week afternoons he took off from work one year in the 1980s to cross the University of Manitoba campus from the Law Faculty to the School of Art and immerse himself in a First-Year drawing class were among the happiest hours of his life.

Dale also had a keenly creative mind and a joie de vivre second to none; his family and friends knew well the mischievous twinkle in his eye whenever something new was afoot. Whether it was contributing to the architecture and design of the law school, advising governments on the repatriation of the Canadian constitution and the development and adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, writing for and appearing on the satirical 1970’s television program This Is the Law, organizing a paper airplane contest at his beloved cabin on the North Saskatchewan River, ransacking Sam the Record Man in Toronto for obscure jazz recordings, or simply constructing a giraffe out of a footstool and a roll of construction paper with his grandchildren, Dale always had something new on the go and invariably punctuated the end of every busy day with a bowl of popcorn and a healthy tot of Glenfiddich.

Dale is survived by his beloved wife Sandra Anderson (née Mosher), his former wife Lee Gibson (née Patterson), his children Kristin and Scott (Mary), stepdaughters Amy Anderson (Colin Gramlich) and Stina Sklarchuk (Brad), his grandchildren Michael, Matthew (Carol), Bret, Scott, Lia, Madelaine, Parker, Paige, Christopher, Larissa and Julia, and his nephews Brett (Penny) and Paul Smith. They, and his many friends, colleagues, students, clients, and admirers, will miss him deeply, even while their lives have been enriched by his remarkable presence.

An event will be organized later in the year to honour Dale’s memory.  Expressions of sympathy may be made in whichever way(s) you wish, but in remembrance of Dale’s life, the family suggests that any charitable donations may be made to the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) or to the Leduc Community Hospital.