Innis Christie on Sarah Palin, etc.
It’s always neat to learn about the personalities behind the books we spend half our lives filing updates into, shelving, and reshelving. I was fascinated by this Lancaster House interview with Innis Christie, who is an original author of Employment Law in Canada, and the winner of the 2008 U of T Bora Laskin Award.
Christie had some really interesting points on his practice and his career in law, mediation, and arbitration, but it was his comments on off-topic things that really struck me. For instance:
On the upcoming US elections:
“I think that this Sarah Palin thing is just appalling. I think it’s just absolutely appalling that she would appeal to a large part of the electorate. Because she’s unqualified, because she’s a believer in what I think to be absurd things, and because she has no sense of her own limitations. I don’t condemn the woman for that, but I condemn an electorate that is so ignorant that they think that the ideal person to run the government is somebody who is like them.”
On advice he gave his children:
“My youngest, when he had come back from an academic year in France and was looking for a job in Nova Scotia, said to me that he had read that there were very few jobs and people were having a great deal of trouble getting them. I said to him, and it wasn’t the first time I said it, or the last time, as he reminds me, I said “You’re not a statistic”. … He got a job. Has ever since. A good one. My children are more than just mere statistics. They’re individuals and they don’t have to be governed by the times and tides. They can take control.”
And on advice to students who want to follow in his footsteps:
“I don’t know. I guess, don’t try to outsmart anybody, just do your work, and call it like you see it.”
Seems like a guy who’s not just legal-smart but life-smart, too. I like the line about not being a statistic. It’s a good way to look at things.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I am Innis Christie’s eldest granddaughter. It was an excellent privilege to be raised under his opinions and ideas on how we could achieve anything with some hard work and patience! He was an exceptional man and he will be missed.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Kit – At Christmastime this year, I discovered that a family friend of ours, Geoff England, was your grandfather’s co-author and close friend. I recently read a very touching in memorium that Geoff wrote about him, and felt that indeed, he must have made quite an impression on all those who knew him.
October 1st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Innis and I were students in residence at the University of Kings College in Halifax in the late 1950’s. It was after Innis told me about Frontier College that I decided to sign up. It turned out to be a life-altering experience. In this interview Innis makes important reference to this organization and I am sure it had a profound impact on him.
As for me, it led me , after two summers, one on a railway gang and another on a construction project in northern Manitoba, to a greater appreciation of our country and the people whose hard work we take for granted.