A Passion for Justice

How 'Vinegar Jim' McRuer Became Canada's Greatest Law Reformer

J. Patrick Boyer

• Publisher: Blue Butterfly
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781926577296
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito giuridico

This richly detailed biography illustrates how a determined Canadian seeking justice created an enduring legacy. Through vigorous battles, Jim McRuer's passion for justice was translated into laws that daily touch and protect the lives of millions today.

James Chalmers McRuer was not easy to get along with or even much liked by many lawyers who dubbed him 'Vinegar Jim.' Yet countless others saw him as heroic, inspirational, a man above and apart from his times.

His resolute focus on justice changed the lives of married women with no property rights, children without legal protection, aboriginals caught in the whipsaw of traditional hunting practices and imposed game laws, and prisoners locked away and forgotten. Environmental degradation and those causing it, murderers, stock fraud artists and Cold War spies all came within the ambit of J. C. McRuer's sharp legal mind and passion for justice. Upon turning 75, McRuer embarked on his most important work of all, becoming Canada's greatest law reformer and remaining active into his 90s.

AYR AND BEYOND

IN 1890, THE YEAR OF JIM MCRUER’S BIRTH, the British empire was vast and still very much intact. The dominant culture of English-speaking Canada—white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant—placed a high value on membership in that empire, and nowhere was this imperial sentiment more widespread or fervent than in Ontario. Even people with no family ties to the British Isles referred to “the Old Country,” and their school-age children were intensively instructed in Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, and Dickens, in the heroics of the explorer Dr. David Livingstone and the anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce, and in the major events of English constitutional history. These pupils in small and scattered schoolhouses gazed with respectful awe at the Mercator map of the world (provided courtesy of the Cadbury Chocolate Company) where they could see the colonies of the British empire—on which the sun never set—coloured a bright red.

Canada then counted for a wide expanse of British red on the world map, and most English-speaking Canadians connected with the rest of the world, both emotionally and intellectually, through their personal sense of belonging to this empire. The pervasive Britishness was a cradle of stability. One did not think or speak, in these times, about independence; that was the path the republican Yankees had erroneously taken. Whether in a city, the smallest village, or on the farm, one thought and spoke rather of the world-wide British community—united by common language, common law, parliamentary institutions, and a vibrant and inspiring cultural heritage. As in a dozen other countries, the red-white-and-blue Union Jack fluttered proudly over Canada from a thousand flag-poles.

This vision of Canada and its place in the world, although grand, was held by a small population. In the country as a whole, there were fewer than five million people scattered over a seemingly endless territory. Ontario, styling itself Canada’s “Empire Province,” had a population of 2,100,000.

Several hundred of these people lived in the village of Ayr and several hundred more resided on the surrounding farms which the village served. This small part of the British empire lay in Waterloo County, whose very name was an evocative reminder of the triumph over Napoleon earlier in the century. The village itself, boasting one of the world’s rare place names of only three letters, had been founded by a transplanted Scot familiar not only with the village’s namesake in the old country but also with the bard Robbie Burns’s description of it: “Auld Ayr, whom ne’er a town surpasses/For honest men and bonnie lasses.”

James Chalmers McRuer was born in the family farmhouse near Ayr on 23 August 1890. His undiluted Scottish bloodline flowed from both his father, John McRuer, and his mother, Mary Chalmers, each of Lowland Scottish origin. The name Chalmers derived from the old French phrase de la chambre, in the sense either of a chamber attendant or of a member of the treasury chamber (that is, a chamberlain).¹ The name McRuer, a rare one in Scotland, meant “son of three.” The stories of its origin vary, but the one best known to the Canadian McRuers involved three brothers of the house of Loren, a sept of the clan McDonald. Two of the brothers fell in love with the same French girl, but when one captured her and carried her off to wed, the other pursued them and in a rage murdered his brother and fled. The girl later died in childbirth, and her infant boy was raised by his two uncles, thus becoming the “son of three” men.

On both his mother’s and his father’s side, Jim McRuer was born into a family where the struggle to survive, disciplined work, and a readiness to move elsewhere to improve one’s lot had become long-standing traditions. His paternal great-grandfather, also named John, was a stonemason from Doune, Perthshire, who could find no employment in Scotland during the depression that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Together with his wife, Mary Mcintyre, he immigrated to Canada in 1823 in the hope of obtaining work on canal-building projects. They settled first in Montreal, but, having little luck in finding work and with a slow succession of babies to feed, they soon moved on to Lachute, where John used the last of his money to buy 200 acres. With his own hands he hacked out a farm, hard up against the ancient Laurentians, faintly, tauntingly, reminiscent of Doune. Yet it was gloomy territory and the farm was described in a family letter as “rough, hilly, narrow … very poor, mixed farm and lumber, and wilder and rougher than Scotland.” Then, too, it galled John McRuer that the land he acquired was still not fully his own—the deed said that he had to pay a levy to the seigneur “as long as the waters run and the mountains stand.” By the time he died on his rocky property in 1863, still bitterly homesick for Scotland, the government had in fact made the land free of such charges, through the abolition of the seigneurial system in 1854.

The migratory nature, or restlessness, of the McRuers was borne of economic need, and of the sense that, elsewhere, conditions had to be better and hard work more satisfactorily rewarded. By the 1860s, several of John and Mary’s children had already escaped from the Lachute farm. The eldest son, Duncan, the McRuers’ pride and joy, was sent, at great family sacrifice, to Knox College in Toronto. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister and posted to Blenheim, Ontario, and then to nearby Ayr, in 1854. At Duncan’s encouraging report of fine farmland in the flat and fertile townships of western Upper Canada, the second and fourth sons, John and William, followed him to Ayr in 1864, and bought farms on land west of the Grand River owned earlier by the Six Nations Indians. Duncan himself moved away in the 1870s to minister to some Scottish Canadians who had settled in Gentry County, Missouri. The third McRuer boy remained in Lachute; his two sons stayed there, too, and died in their seventies, two old bachelors rocking on the porch and watching the potatoes grow. The fifth son moved to Kenmore, near Ottawa, followed by the two daughters; and the eighth child, another son, moved to Manitoba to farm.

The John McRuer who brought his wife Jesse (née Drew) from Lachute to Ayr in 1864 had five children survive infancy, the eldest of whom was named, for a third generation in a row, John. This John, sixteen years old when the family moved from Quebec, was to become Jim’s father. In 1873 he married Jane Patton, the very young daughter of a prominent local builder. The newlywed couple settled on a farm that had been acquired by John’s father (he had purchased good land when arriving in Ayr in 1864 and soon prospered enough to buy two additional farms for his sons), in a house built for them by Elizabeth’s father. Their farm was on the townline that ran out from Ayr along the boundary between South Dumfries and Blenheim townships.

The farmhouse built by father Patton was mostly completed by late spring 1874, being constructed with the kind of quality, albeit economical, workmanship one expected of a Scot. Located fifteen yards from the road, its lines softened by clusters of lilac and mountain ash, the house was clad in the warm yellow brick that was a distinguishing characteristic of architecture in southwestern Ontario. Using bricks hauled by wagon from the Muma Company brickworks at the village of Drumbo fourteen miles away, Patton, after laying a solid stone foundation, built the first-storey walls three bricks thick, reducing this to a two-brick width for the second storey. Better materials were used at the front and sides of the house, where they might be seen from the road, than at the rear, and where additions could be readily and inexpensively added as the family expanded.

All these hopes and plans soon shattered. On 14 August 1874 Jane, age seventeen, died in childbirth, and the unborn infant perished with her. Forlornly, John continued to live in the farmhouse. When he did finally remarry, some six years later, his new bride was a strong-willed but affectionate twenty-three-year-old woman named Mary Chalmers. John never spoke about his first wife again.

Mary was a tall, stoop-shouldered lass from Mornington Township, twelve miles north of Stratford. Her family, like John’s, had come to Canada to escape the bleak prospects facing them in Scotland. Her grandfather, John Chalmers, and his family, Scottish weavers and paisley shawl makers thrown out of work by the introduction of mechanized looms in the woollen mills, had arrived in Hamilton in 1842 and then made their way to Perth County. They became the first settlers in Mornington Township, starting a farm on land so wild that herds of deer would come in to pasture with the cows. Mary’s enterprising uncle Adam, elected a member of the first township council, established the Mornington Fall Fair, a horse and cattle market where participants showed off their homemade manufactures—flannel, tweed, boots, rag carpets, horseshoes—or piled up their cheeses and vegetables in a competition for prize ribbons. The Chalmers, a charter family in this southwestern district of the province, were especially proud of their budding young cousin, Alexander Mackenzie, the Scottish-born stonemason who in 1873 would become Canada’s first Liberal prime minister.

The McRuers and the Chalmers rejoiced in the clear and free title to their land. Both families did well, taking advantage of the construction of railways and England’s growing demand for wheat during the Crimean War. In 1867 Upper Canada became “Ontario,” and, after a rocky decade of world depression, entered an era of steady—though not unbroken—economic growth. Although the Stratford and Huron Railway missed unfortunate Mornington by half a mile, the trains of the Credit Valley Railway puffed right through Ayr (a route not unrelated to the fact that the prosperous township had subsidized the railway to the tune of $110,000) and by 1880 sacks of Ayr wheat, from John McRuer’s farm and those of his neighbours, were being shipped from the village straight to Toronto’s docks and flour mills.

John McRuer’s farm was the standard 100 Ontario acres, which was about the amount of land one man could manage in those days. Ten acres were planted in wheat, twenty acres in oats (or sometimes barley), and eight acres in peas. There was an orchard and an eight-acre woodlot, and the remainder of the land either lay fallow or provided hay for the five beef cattle and the five milkers. Horses were kept to help with the work.

John McRuer was a rugged, wiry man, the kind who was “never sick a day in his life.” Mary, in contrast, was more fragile. As the eldest in a family of nine, she had borne a large share of the work on the family farm, and her health had been weakened by a bout of childhood tuberculosis. The couple’s first child, a son born in 1885, was predictably named John. The second arrived two years later, a daughter christened Margaret. By the time Jim was born in 1890, Mary’s hair was prematurely white and, though only thirty-three years old, she had the typical bowed-down look of a middle-aged farm wife.

Apart from family moments together, such as daily bible readings, trips into the village, or occasional visits to relatives, the McRuers’ respite from daily chores was minimal. Most of the little relaxation they enjoyed was provided by infrequent letters fetched from the Ayr post office, chats with neighbours, and the local newspapers. Although the Ayr newspaper was a thin effort, the family also read other publications. The Woodstock Sentinel Review came to the Ayr post office weekly and brought with it some news of the world. The Farmers’ Advocate magazine arrived as well, with regular instalments of Sherlock Holmes stories which young John would eagerly read to Jim.

At McCall’s general store in Ayr, the McRuers used their token credit (the store issued “due bills”) or bartered butter and eggs to obtain tea or trousers or tools. Sometimes the farmhouse would be visited by travelling salesmen promoting the latest in farm machinery or more humble merchandise. Jim was particularly entranced by one gentle, and elderly, itinerant pedlar who was quite happy to sleep overnight on the kitchen floor after displaying his wares for cash. Yet cash sales were rare in this economy of narrow margins and barter, and John McRuer Sr. once went for a full twelve months with just $2 in his pocket. He and Mary resolutely saved money, making sacrifices in doing so, for their children’s education and with a hopeful eye to the future. The family never thought of itself as poor, but, as Jim realized, the arrival of anything new—a kitchen tool, a piece of farm machinery, or even an orange or some nuts in a Christmas stocking—was an “event.”

Like other Scots in the area, the McRuers had high standards of morality and integrity, and they carefully brought up their children on a diet of oatmeal porridge and the Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian Church. (From the latter came such question-and-answer exercises as: “What is the chief end of Man? To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever.” Jim watched for laughter or frowns when he mixed up the response and said, “To Glorify God and enjoy yourself!”) Again like their neighbours, the McRuers were profoundly isolated on their farm, and they yearned for community, intellectual challenge, and an escape from those bouts of loneliness and melancholy so common to the Celts. They had no electricity—Hydro lines would not reach the farm until 1936—and no telephone, although Alexander Graham Bell had made the world’s first long-distance call from Brantford to nearby Paris in 1876. Life was simple, hard, and spartan; still, the McRuers considered themselves an above-average family and were proud of their reputation as good farmers. They also derived confidence, and perhaps just a bit of smugness, from the fact that they were Presbyterians.

Sunday was the high point of the week. Bouncing along the dusty concession road in the buggy, or carving through the snow drifts by cutter in winter, the family would never fail to drive the two and a half miles into Ayr to get to the Sunday school in Knox Church by 10 o’clock in the morning. A report card, which Jim proudly showed his mother after Sunday school when he, brother John, and sister Margaret joined their parents for the main service, recorded the verdict of his teacher, Miss Margaret McMillan: “Lessons very good. Also attendance.”

The routine of Sunday school was always the same. Each week a new lesson was taught and small printed cards were handed out to each child. Printed illustrations in many colours from the presses of the Providence Lithography Company adorned these cards. Through 1898 and 1899 young Jim keenly studied his cards’ dramatic lessons about “Ezekiel’s Great Vision,” “Daniel in the Den of Lions,” “Encouraging the Builders,” “Power Through the Spirit,” “Rebuilding the Temple,” “Returning From Captivity,” and “The New Heart.” Printed on the back of each card was a scriptural quotation, a few sentences of explanation, and a catechism of nine or ten questions and correct answers on which Miss McMillan drilled the youngster:

Teacher: “Who are the lights of the world?”

Pupil: “God’s children.”

Teacher: “What do they need all the time?”

Pupil: “God’s help.”

Teacher: “How will He give help if you ask Him?”

Pupil: “Freely all the time.”

Jim treasured these little cards: they were something of his own. Each one was dated for a different Sunday, and so his fine attendance meant that he had virtually a complete set. Jim attentively studied the pictures and the words. As it turned out, he kept these little cards all his life, and he also kept the lessons he had learned from them close to his heart. Throughout his adult life, Jim McRuer would be driven by the Christian teachings he had absorbed as a boy. The need to do good deeds and great works for the benefit of others was the indelible lesson of his Sunday school classroom.

In the newly built Knox Church, a fairly grandiose structure for dour Presbyterian Scots, the family sat together for the 11 o’clock service. As the Reverend Dr. Thompson, successor to Uncle Duncan, earnestly preached the weekly sermon, Jim’s mother let him fall asleep, his head on her lap. Occasionally, the McRuers would seek a change in their religious diet and watch the itinerant Methodist circuit riders who sometimes set up their tents in town or preached at the nearby Paris Plains Church. That was great fun, although it meant that Jim’s Sunday school attendance record slipped a notch, which bothered him. He was extremely proud of the virtually unbroken row of coloured stars behind his name, affixed weekly, to the class attendance card on the classroom wall.

After church and the buggy ride home, the McRuer family sat in their Sunday best in the formal front parlour, its sunless northern-exposure windows casting cool light over the austere furniture and prickly horsehair-filled upholstery. John and Mary read bible passages to the children or sometimes, as a treat, told them inspirational stories of famous men such as Dr. Livingstone. Mary’s tales, especially, prompted the eldest son, John, to start dreaming about being a medical doctor some day, while Jim, also stirred by the examples of great men that his mother held out before him, would eventually begin entertaining thoughts of becoming a Presbyterian minister.

Mary, though sentimental and affectionate, was a no-nonsense woman, determined that her children would always follow the high road. One of her particular dislikes was the low life associated with playing cards, and once, when she caught John doing just that, she admonished him and called cards the “books of the devil.” She was also a strong disciplinarian who believed in corporal punishment to keep her children on the straight and narrow. Young Jim periodically felt the raw sting of a fresh willow switch, ritually snapped across his hands for some immature impropriety or childhood naughtiness. Mary’s approach to raising her children also included a strong measure of pride in the family’s Scottish heritage. When Jim was four years old, she hustled all three children off to Paris for a formal portrait at the Bauslaugh Photographic Studio. Jim, dressed up for the occasion by his beaming mother in a Scottish kilt she loved, hated wearing this ancestral outfit “because it made me look like a girl.” The next year she had the photographer come out to the farm and once more Jim reluctantly donned his Scottish skirt and frill-lace collar.

Along with religion, politics wove itself into the McRuers’ life as a family. In fact, while John McRuer was a regular church-goer, as social custom demanded, he was vastly more interested in politics—and especially Liberal Party politics. In this respect, he was typical of the Scots in his part of the province. Committed ...