Wilson was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland on September 18, 1923 She is the daughter of Archibald Wernham and Christina Noble. Wilson received a Master of Arts degree in philosophy from the University of Aberdeen in 1944. In 1949, Bertha Wilson emigrated to Canada with her husband, Reverend John Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, whom she had married in 1945. The couple settled in Renfrew, Ontario, after John Wilson accepted a posting as a pastor. Three years later, in 1952, her husband became a naval chaplain during the Korean War, and she worked as a dental receptionist in Ottawa. In 1954, her husband was posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia and they both moved.
Professional Career
In 1955, Wilson was admitted to Dalhousie University to study law, and three years later she completed her Bachelor of Laws degree, and was called to the Bar in Nova Scotia. Wilson applied for and was accepted into a Master of Laws program at Harvard Law School, but chose not to attend. Wilson moved to Toronto and joined Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt in 1958, a year before she was called to the Ontario Bar, where she later became the firm's first female associate. In 1968, Wilson became Osler's first female partner. She founded the research department at Osler, which was the first of its kind in Canada, becoming a model for other research departments. Bertha Wilson was the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 1975. In March, 1982, she became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, nominated by Pierre Trudeau. Wilson retired from the court in January, 1991, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1992, she was named Companion of the Order of Canada. Wilson's noteworthy Supreme Court rulings include: R. v. Morgentaler in 1988, R. v Lavallée in 1990, Operation Dismantle v. The Queen in 1985, the minority decision in R. v. Stevens which was adopted later in R. v. Hess; R. v. Nguyen in 1990, Kosmopolous v. Constitution Insurance Co. of Canada, the dissenting opinion in McKinney v. University of Guelph in 1990, Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia in 1989, and Sobeys Stores v. Yeomans and Labour Standards Tribunal in 1989 which are among the foundational cases interpreting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was enacted in 1982, the year that she was appointed to the Supreme Court. From 1991 to 1996, Wilson was a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Wilson gave a controversial and much-discussed speech about the role and influence of women in legal professions and the judiciary titled, "Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?" Wilson died in an Ottawa, Ontario retirement home on April 28, 2007 at the age of 84, due to Alzheimer's disease.
