Khullar appointed chief justice of the Alberta Court of Appeal

Daughter of Indian immigrants rose from trial judge to top job in five years

Alberta's new top judge is a rising star and unostentatious trailblazer who hails from one of the province's smallest communities.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced Ritu Khullar as the new chief justice of the Alberta Court of Appeal, filling the position left vacant by the retirement of longtime chief justice Catherine Fraser earlier this year.

Khullar, who is in her 50s, has risen swiftly through the judiciary, going from trial judge to top of the appeal court in just five years. She also assumes the chief justice role for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

“The opportunity to serve the people of Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in this way is an enormous privilege and responsibility to which I am wholly committed,” Khullar said in a statement.

“I am forever grateful to live in Canada where the values of respect, equality and fairness are deeply embedded and where any individual can flourish.”

Peter Sankoff, a criminal lawyer and University of Alberta law professor, said he was “delighted” with the news, calling Khullar the best judge on the court of appeal.

“She has the perfect temperament for chief justice,” he said. “She's open-minded and intellectually curious. She doesn't try to assume she knows everything better than you do, and she asks questions that are designed to elicit answers rather than tell you what she knows.”

Khullar was the first South Asian judge in Alberta history when she was appointed to the then-court of Queen's Bench in 2017, and the first South Asian woman to be named to a Canadian appeal court when she was elevated the following year.

Khullar's parents immigrated from India to Canada in 1961, six years before Canada liberalized its immigration laws and opened the doors to a wave of South Asian immigrants. Her mother was Sikh, her father was Hindu. After arriving in Canada, they settled in the tiny northern community of La Crete, where they taught school on a Mennonite colony.

Khullar herself was born at the hospital in nearby Fort Vermilion, a hamlet on the Peace River tied for the title of the oldest European settlement in Alberta. The family eventually relocated to Morinville, where Khullar spent most of her childhood before enrolling at the University of Alberta. She studied political science and eventually decided to attend the University of Toronto law school.

Between 1998 and 2017, Khullar worked at Chivers Greckol & Kanee, specializing in labour and employment, privacy, human rights, and constitutional law, eventually rising to become managing partner.

In a 2018 interview with thenedmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons, Khullar chafed at the idea of herself as a role model for lawyers of South Asian descent.

“I think that's weird,” she said with a laugh. “I'm proud of my heritage. My parents came from India. But that's not what defines

me. I never refer to myself as South Asian. I describe myself as Canadian. My parents raised us as Canadians. Full stop.”

Sankoff said there's nothing unusual in Khullar's rapid rise to the top, saying it's common in Alberta for those destined for the Court of Appeal to make at least a brief stop at a trial court.

As for her philosophy, “I find that she's extremely principled,” he said.

“She believes in the rule of law, she believes that the legal result that's correct will come to the forefront. She seems to me to be a judge who's, at least from what I've seen, less willing to make policy based decisions when she's trying to decide on legal questions, and that's a really refreshing change.”

With the provincial government expected to table its controversial Sovereignty Act Tuesday, Sankoff expects the court will soon have a raft of high-profile constitutional cases.

“Alberta has a lot of legal questions to resolve (from) the constitutional standpoint, and I think she'll make sure it's done in a fair way, to the extent that she can,” he said.

The chief justice position carries a mandatory retirement age of 75.

She believes in the rule of law, she believes that the legal result that's correct will come to the forefront.