Peter Engelmann  

Peter Engelmann is a lawyer with the Ottawa branch of the Sack Goldblatt Mitchell law firm.  He is lead commission counsel for the Cornwall Public Inquiry. 

1988: Admitted to the Bar, Ontario

1982: Called to the Bar, Alberta

Law School: University of Alberta 

Peter Engelmann, Lead Commission Counsel, is a partner with Sack Goldblatt Mitchell. Peter is a leading labour, human rights and employment lawyer.

Peter was called to the Bar in 1982, and since then, he has argued leading cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Ontario courts, the Federal Court and Administrative Tribunals.

Peter is the co-author of Trade Union Law in Canada and has taught human rights, labour law and arbitration, and advocacy. He also speaks regularly at legal seminars on labour and human rights topics.

Peter is a member of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers and the Advocates Society.

Practice:

Peter Engelmann is a senior member of the labour Bar. His practice focuses on all aspects of labour law, human rights, pay and employment equity law and Charter litigation. He has appeared at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada, and appears regularly before arbitrators, human rights tribunals, and other administrative tribunals.

Peter is the co-author of Trade Union Law in Canada and has taught human rights, labour law and arbitration and advocacy for the Ottawa and District Labour Council. He also speaks regularly at legal seminars on labour and human rights topics.

Peter is currently acting as lead Commission counsel in the Cornwall Public Inquiry. 

Some of Peter's cases include:

Bell Canada v. Canadian Telephone Employees Assn. (independence of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal);

Canada (House of Commons) v. Vaid (Speaker of the House of Commons cannot rely on parliamentary privilege to shield his managerial decisions from the application of the Canadian Human Rights Act);

Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Canada (Labour Relations Board) (CBC could not force employee to choose between his job as a radio host and his position as union president);

Rosenberg v. Canada (Attorney General) (right of gays and lesbians to spousal survivor pensions);

Canada (Attorney General) v. Thwaites (discrimination against HIV positive master seaman by Canadian Armed Forces); 

Education:

Admitted to the Ontario Bar - 1988

Admitted to the Alberta Bar - 1982

University of Alberta - LL.B (1981)

University of Alberta - B.A. (1978)

-  Member, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers;

-  Member, Canadian Bar Association

Publications:

Trade Union Law in Canada (Aurora: Canada Law Book, 2002) (with M. Lynk and M. MacNeil)

 Lancaster House Labour Law Online bio: 

Peter Engelmann is a partner at the Ottawa office of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell. Peter represents unions and is a recognized expert in human rights and pay equity law and also has a labour, charter litigation and employment equity practice. Peter appears regularly before private arbitrators and labour and human rights tribunals. He also appears regularly in the provincial and federal courts on judicial review applications. He began his career in Alberta practicing union-side labour law before coming to Ottawa as counsel to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Peter is a co-author of the book Trade Union Law in Canada and contributes regularly to a variety of other publications. He has also taught human rights, labour law and arbitration and advocacy for the Ottawa and District Labour Council.

Canada's biggest union wants to give partner benefits

The following quote is from Outlines online (World Roundup Lambda Publications, 05 November 1997 to 11 November 1997)

Canada's largest union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, argued for the right to grant same-sex domestic-partner benefits before the Ontario Court of Appeal Oct. 20.

"It's about dignity and self-worth," said CUPE attorney Peter Engelmann. "It's about having same-sex relationships recognized on the same level as those of heterosexual colleagues, not being treated as second-class citizens."

The union is prevented from extending its pension plan to gay couples by Revenue Canada's refusal to redefine 'spouse' in the Income Tax Act.

"The government has no business discriminating in either the bedrooms of the nation or the private pension plans of the nation," said CUPE spokesperson Geraldine McGuire.

31 October 2007: Peter Engelmann discussed human rights issues at the Canadian Condominium Institute's 2007 Symposium. Doubletree International Plaza Hotel, 655 Dixon Road, Toronto.

05 April & 06 April 2007: Peter Engelmann co-chaired the Lancaster House conference on "Meeting New Challenges: Human Rights, Accommodation and Privacy Conference 2007"

Toronto Globe & Mail

June 29, 2005

Correct us if we're wrong, but aren't lawyers supposed to be giving clients advice rather than the other way around?

Former Ogilvy Renault partner Catherine Wade was grateful to have the tables turned recently when she got a bit of career counselling from the folk at long-time client VenGrowth Capital Partners. Their proposal: Consider jumping to Heenan Blaikie.

The Vancouver-based corporate finance practitioner made the leap to Heenans after VenGrowth suggested certain synergies might be achieved.

How so? It happens the private equity manager was already doing significant business with Heenans' Toronto office. If Ms. Wade were to switch allegiances in Vancouver, she could service the company's West Coast needs through the same firm, enabling VenGrowth to consolidate its outside legal work without skipping a beat.

"They basically said: 'If you're looking to move, why don't you look at Heenan because we have some contacts there,' " Ms. Wade recalls.

It also helped that Ms. Wade was well-acquainted with recent Heenans recruit Henry Bertossi, with whom she had worked for years in the Toronto office of Blake Cassels & Graydon.

Justice for laughs

Benjamin Zarnett might want to consider adding "comic thespian" to his long list of enviable credentials after last week's cinematic triumph at the Advocates Society end-of-term dinner.

As the litigation fraternity's outgoing president, Mr. Zarnett had the 1,000-plus audience rolling in the plush-carpeted aisles of Toronto's Fairmont Royal York with a video send-up of his post-executive duties.

Decked out in 19th-century waistcoat and hat, the Goodmans partner hammed it up in various roles, playing, among other things, a pathetically un-fluent multilingual tour guide for the society's historic Campbell House headquarters and an office assistant labouring over new typeface possibilities for the firm's stationery.

"He really belongs in a comedy club as much as he does in a courtroom," says Linda Rothstein, the society's incoming president and partner with Toronto litigation boutique Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein.

Also featured in the video were Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry and Superior Court Justice Warren Winkler doing a Mission: Impossible parody that had them struggling to conjure up new duties for court employees in an era when more and more litigants are opting for pretrial settlements.

The verdict on the judges' performance? Keep your day jobs.

Sack bags Ottawa boutique

It wouldn't be happy news for any law firm to lose two key partners in the same week, but when the firm boasts just three partners to begin with, the exodus can be downright unsettling -- not to mention a blow to office overhead expenses.

That's the pickled pepper Peter Engelmann found himself in when his Ottawa labour boutique, Engelmann Gottheil, bid adieu to Frederica Wilson and Michael Gottheil last month. It was a bittersweet farewell, to be sure. Ms. Wilson was named to the Law Commission of Canada, while Mr. Gottheil was appointed chairman of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

What did the suddenly single Mr. Engelmann do? Got remarried.

Mr. Engelmann began to make overtures toward prominent Toronto labour firm Sack Goldblatt Mitchell. As it happens, Sack Goldblatt, with 33 lawyers in Toronto and just one in Ottawa, had been sniffing around in the nation's capital for a potential new partner to help it tap into federal public service and employment-equity work.

The union-side firm saw what they liked in Mr. Engelmann, who, among other things, is counsel to the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and is acting against Canada Post on behalf of the Human Rights Commission.

Also joining Sack Goldblatt in Ottawa are Mr. Engelmann's four associates, Fiona Campbell, Michelle Flaherty, Kourosh Farrokhzad and Raija Pulkkinen. Steven Shrybman, Sack Goldblatt's Ottawa lawyer, will vacate his current space and move into the former Engelmann Gottheil premises.

Stikemans, Oslers battle-tested

There were squads of shell-shocked lawyers emerging from the TD Waterhouse bunker last week. Counsel who put together the $3-billion union of Toronto-Dominion Bank's U.S. discount brokerage arm with erstwhile rival Ameritrade -- a deal three years in the making -- had to deal not only with each other but also hostile salvos from jilted suitor E*Trade.

Ameritrade looked to Stikeman Elliott as its Canadian counsel, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati for U.S. legal advice, with Morgan Lewis & Brockius smoothing the U.S. regulatory waters. On the other side, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt was Canadian counsel for TD Waterhouse, while Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett was the U.S. adviser.