The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50821
Peel him back and what you find inside Guy Pratte inevitably goes back to a particular Royal commission in the summer of 1975 in a crowded room in the law building of Montreal's McGill Uni- versity. The inquiry was set up by then-prime minis- ter Pierre Trudeau to investigate business practices at Air Canada that had strayed beyond its Crown corpora- tion mandate. The chairman and chief executive officer of the airline was Pratte's father, Yves Pratte, one of Que- bec's top business lawyers. That inquiry destroyed Yves Pratte, who was made the fall guy. He was never the same afterwards and it marked young Guy forever. As CEO, the senior Pratte had tried to modernize the Crown-owned airline. Air Canada indulged in a little vertical integration — buying into the Sunset Crest resort in Barbados to help fill seats going south — against Crown corporation regulations, and mak- ing side deals with travel agencies — McGregor Travel in Montreal — also against the rules. Today those moves would pass unnoticed and even be great for business, but back then it was enough to warrant a public inquiry. It attracted some of the best lawyers died nine years later at age 63. "Maybe it's a total coincidence," says Pratte, "but to- day I find myself representing people who are embroiled with public inquiries, parliamentary or otherwise." And Pratte, a partner with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, doesn't think highly of them — abhors them, in fact. Thirty-three years later, he hasn't forgotten what one in- quiry did to his father. "Those public inquiries are very, very crude instruments," he says. "I've seen first-hand the harm they can do to people's reputations." Pratte does not like what inquiries stand for, how they very, very crude instruments. in Canada, including Jack Campbell, Richard Mongeau, and Yves Fortier. Trudeau appointed Justice Willard "Bud" Estey as commission head, but in the end it was Yves Pratte's head they got. "My father was fired," says his son. "I saw the letter from the guy in Saskatchewan" (likely Otto Lang, then transport minister). It was a shock to the young Pratte. His father was like a god to him. He didn't believe such a thing could ever happen. "After that, I remember my father leaving the house in Montreal in the morning with a little serviette [briefcase] with a CV looking for a job." Despite his experience, the elder Pratte couldn't find a I've seen first- hand the harm they can do to people's reputations." — GUY PRATTE "Those public inquiries are are run, or the lack of basic human and legal respect he believes they have for individuals caught in their glare. "I think we fail to see how hurtful these things can be for people in the public eye," says Pratte. "I have never understood why we require of our politicians a degree of sainthood that we are not prepared to live by ourselves, when in our offices and in our circles of friends we live in ways not much differ- ent from them. If we continue to ask for sainthood of our politicians it's going to end up a pretty tight circle. Which is not to say you want to tolerate everything. It's a question of measure and balance, and of tolerance. I may disagree with a lot of these people but generally they warrant a measure of respect." There must be a balance between what Canadians want from commissions and protection for the reputations of peo- ple who appear before them. It bothers Pratte that commissions are not subject to the same rules as a court of law sim- ply because in a commission report there job. His son recalls: "People would say 'Oh no, we don't want him; he's tainted goods. He's been fired from Air Canada.' I don't think he ever really recovered from that. It was a hurt that was always there because he had loved Air Canada, and although he was a lawyer, he would have gladly left law forever for the business world." Trudeau took pity on him, it was said, and in 1977 appointed Yves Pratte to the Supreme Court of Can- ada. Ironically, the PM appointed Estey to the SCC bench the same day. The court was an honour, "but my dad wasn't happy," recalls the son. He stayed only two years, then left Ottawa and went back to Montreal. He 32 JULY 2008 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com is no penal or civil judgment. "It doesn't make sense," he says, "that somebody before small claims court for a $10,000 judgment has more right to procedural rigour than somebody before a commission where their reputa- tion can be ruined forever." Parliamentary committees can be even more damag- ing, he notes. He knows. "I went twice with Mr. Pelletier and once with Mr. Mulroney," he says. What happened to his clients at the Commons ethics committee hearings soured him forever on politics. "At a parliamentary com- mittee there are absolutely no rules. Zero rules. At least at inquiry commissions some rules of fairness apply. Par- liamentary immunity means things are said that never would be said if MPs were subject to defamatory libel." He remembers New Democrat MP Pat Martin say- ing to Mulroney: "I won't call you a liar, but I don't want anyone here to think that I believe you." Pratte says,