Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada announces judicial appointments in the province of British Columbia

August 29, 2024 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Justice Canada  

The Honourable Arif Virani, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today announced the following appointments under the judicial application process established in 2016. This process emphasizes transparency, merit, and the diversity of the Canadian population, and will continue to ensure the appointment of jurists who meet the highest standards of excellence and integrity.

The Honourable Sheri Ann Donegan, a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, is appointed a Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Vancouver. Justice Donegan replaces Justice J.L.L. Hunter, who resigned February 11, 2024.

The Honourable W. Paul Riley, a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, is appointed a Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Vancouver. Justice Riley replaces Justice G.J. Fitch, who resigned effective April 30, 2024.

The Honourable Andrea L. Ormiston, a Judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia in Chilliwack, is appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Abbotsford. Justice Ormiston replaces Justice R.W. Jenkins (Abbotsford), who elected to become a supernumerary judge effective January 1, 2022.

The Honourable Tina L. Dion, a Judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia in Surrey, is appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in New Westminster. Justice Dion replaces Justice F.E. Verhoeven (New Westminster), who elected to become a supernumerary judge effective January 22, 2024.

David M. Layton, K.C., Deputy Director, Criminal Appeals, at the British Columbia Prosecution Service of the Ministry of the Attorney General of British Columbia in Vancouver, is appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Port Coquitlam. Justice Layton fills the remaining position authorized further to the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1.

Eric V. Gottardi, K.C., Senior Partner at Peck and Company in Vancouver, is appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in New Westminster. Justice Gottardi replaces Justice W.P. Riley (New Westminster) who was elevated to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia effective August 28, 2024.

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“I wish Justices Donegan, Riley, Ormiston, Dion, Layton, and Gottardi every success as they take on their new roles. I am confident they will serve the people of British Columbia well as members of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia and the Supreme Court of British Columbia.”

—The Hon. Arif Virani, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Biographies

Justice Sheri Ann Donegan was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2013. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Saskatchewan in 1989, as well as a Bachelor of Laws with distinction in 1992. She was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1993.

Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2013, Justice Donegan was a judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia from 2010 to 2013. She served as Crown counsel for the Attorney General of British Columbia in Kamloops and New Westminster from 1998 to 2010. She also practised at Mair Jensen Blair in Kamloops from 1992 to 1998. She was a frequent lecturer on child protection issues.

Justice W. Paul Riley was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2017. He earned his LL.B. from Dalhousie University in 1995. He was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1996.

Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2017, Justice Riley was Crown counsel with what is now the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) since 1997. In 2007, he became the head of the British Columbia Regional Office’s appeals group. He conducted hundreds of appeals in the British Columbia Court of Appeal and appeared over a dozen times as lead counsel in the Supreme Court of Canada in cases involving important issues of criminal and constitutional law. He was appointed King's Counsel in 2014.

Justice Riley served on numerous committees, including the PPSC’s National Litigation Committee and the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s Criminal Appeals Advisory Committee.

Justice Andrea L. Ormiston obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto in 1997, a Master’s in English Literature from Queen’s University in 1998, and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ottawa in 2002. She was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 2003 and to the British Columbia Bar in 2005.

Justice Ormiston was appointed to the Provincial Court of British Columbia in 2017. Her legal career began in Barrie Ontario, but it took root and flourished practising criminal law in the Fraser Valley where she worked as legal counsel and volunteered for educational and community-oriented projects relating to criminal law. She served as Crown counsel both in Ontario and in British Columbia with a focus on criminal law. Between September 2003 and March 2004, she interned at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Native Law Centre of Canada and the University of Vienna, where she concentrated on the international rights of Indigenous peoples. She volunteered with the Chilliwack Public Safety Committee.

Justice Tina L. Dion is a member of the Kehewin Cree Nation, Alberta. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Alberta in 1994, Bachelor of Laws from the University of British Columbia in 1997 and Doctor of Juridical Science from the University of Arizona in 2008. She was the first Canadian Law Clerk to the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, Window Rock, Arizona (1998). She was admitted to the British Columbia Bar in 1999 and to the Alberta Bar in 2014.

Justice Dion was appointed to the Provincial Court of British Columbia in 2019. She regularly sat as one of two judges in First Nations Court New Westminster. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she had been in private practice in the areas of civil litigation, administrative, environmental, regulatory and Aboriginal law since 2013. She articled and worked with criminal firm Orris Burns prior to joining Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP where she practised civil ligation. She was in-house counsel and Director of Legal Services with the Tsawwassen First Nation Government. She served as an adjunct professor at UBC Law over a 12-year period.

Justice Dion was active in the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch including as a member of the executive committee and co-chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Working Group. She regularly chaired and presented at the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia (CLEBC) conferences. She was appointed King's Counsel in 2016.

Justice Dion loves to travel and spend time with friends and family.

Justice David M. Layton, K.C., was born and raised in Truro, Nova Scotia. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts and LL.B. degrees from Dalhousie University in 1984 and 1987, and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from the University of Oxford in 1989. He was called to the British Columbia bar in 2002.

Justice Layton clerked for Chief Justice Brian Dickson at the Supreme Court of Canada in 1990, before joining the litigation department of what is now Torys LLP. He began practising criminal law in 1994, in Toronto with Marko Rose Layton and Shiller Layton Arbuck, and then beginning in 2001 in Vancouver with Gibbons Fowler and Richie Sandford. In 2014, David joined the indictable appeals section of the BC Prosecution Service, and in 2020 became manager of that section as Deputy Director of Criminal Appeals. He was appointed King’s Counsel in 2016.

Justice Layton is co-author, with the late Justice Michel Proulx of the Quebec Court of Appeal, of the textbook Ethics and Criminal Law, a second edition of which was published in 2015. He is also a contributing author to McWilliams’ Canadian Criminal Evidence, 5th ed. He has published extensively in reviewed law journals and spoken at many conferences and continuing legal education events. He has also taught courses at the Peter A. Allard School of Law – University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria Faculty of Law on the topics of wrongful convictions and criminal law and ethics. From 2012 to 2022, he adjudicated disciplinary cases involving lawyers as a member of the Law Society of British Columbia Tribunal.

Justice Eric V. Gottardi, K.C., obtained his Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1997 and a Bachelor of Law from Queen’s University in 2002. He was called to the British Columbia bar in 2003.

Justice Gottardi spent the majority of his career practicing law at Peck and Company and became a senior partner in 2010. He was an experienced trial and appellate counsel who practised primarily in the area of criminal defense, constitutional, and extradition law. He has worked as a prosecutor on special prosecutions in British Columbia and in Ontario. He regularly appeared as counsel before the British Columbia Court of Appeal and has argued cases for parties and interveners at the Supreme Court of Canada. After graduating from Queen’s Law, he worked as a judicial law clerk for the justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. In 2019, he was appointed a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He was appointed King’s Counsel in 2020.

Justice Gottardi is a former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) National Criminal Justice section and acted as a founding co-chair for the National CBA Annual Criminal Law Conference. He was awarded the CBABC’s President’s Medal in 2013 for his long-standing service to the profession. He was a planner and a faculty member with the Federation of Law Societies National Criminal Law Program. He was a faculty member with the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute and an editor of the Charter of Rights newsletter. Justice Gottardi is the author of a legal text on expert evidence, entitled Qualifying and Challenging Expert Evidence by Emond publishing. He has regularly spoken at continuing legal education, seminars, and often appeared as a legal commentator for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other news outlets.