Catholic Vancouver July 05, 2022
Guided by the law: archdiocese’s attorney likes to ask, ‘What is the right way to deal with this?’
By Terry O'Neill
When Mary Margaret MacKinnon graduated from Little Flower Academy in 1975, she was intent on resisting “the family machine,” which was the expectation that she choose a career in law. Instead, she set her sights on health care and enrolled in the nursing school at Vancouver General Hospital.
But her youthful determination not to follow in the career footsteps of her father, uncle, and grandfathers was eventually transformed into the realization that she was, after all, attracted to the legal profession. In 1981, she enrolled in the University of Victoria law school. Four year later, she was called to the bar in British Columbia.
She then began a remarkable career of service, not only to the public, but more especially to the Roman Catholic Church in B.C. and other parts of Canada – an impressive career that has now led to her receiving a Queen’s Counsel’s designation, one of only 30 lawyers so recognized this year for their contributions to the provincial justice system.
“I think in these woke times, when everybody worries about social approval and public opinion, the idea that God speaks to us in our heart is what should guide us and not the approbation of others.” — Mary Margaret MacKinnon, QC
“It’s a recognition by the judiciary, primarily, that you’re a good counsel,” MacKinnon, who is a partner in the Vancouver law firm of Guild Yule LLP, said in an interview. “It’s a real honour – a recognition by the people that I have appeared before over 35 years that they think that I’m of a certain stature.”
The Ministry of the Attorney General said in a press release announcing the names of those being honoured with a QC designation that MacKinnon is a well-respected litigator and mediator who has been a member of the bar in B.C., the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories for more than 30 years.
Just as she followed her relatives into the legal profession, she also continued their legacy in serving the Church. Her maternal grandfather, James Coady, was an early adviser to the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Her father, Douglas MacKinnon, performed legal work for both Vancouver College and LFA. (Both men eventually became judges.) And a close family friend, Alfred Clarke, was the archdiocese’s solicitor for more than 30 years.
“It’s certainly helpful over time to be part of a family that people know and trust, so that I can talk to priests, and I can talk to school teachers, or I can talk to people, and they are comfortable and able to share things with me, knowing that I’m coming from a place that understands them, and that I understand the values that they share and what motivates them,” she said. “And I think I learned that from my family and from Alf Clarke.”
As general counsel for both the Archdiocese of Vancouver and the Catholic Independent Schools of Vancouver, MacKinnon has represented the Church before the courts and served on key committees, most notably in 2019 as chair of the Case Review Committee that studied 36 cases of sexual abuse by priests since the 1950s.
Asked about the challenges of that role, MacKinnon answered by pointing out that half the committee members were sex-abuse survivors. “It was a very difficult committee to chair, that is correct, but we were trailblazers,” she said. “I think we have done some incredibly important stuff.” (The committee’s latest report appears this week on Page 7.)
MacKinnon praised Archbishop J. Michael Miller for his courage in taking the lead on clerical sex abuse. “He stepped out first to say let’s have the sexual-abuse advisory panel go through the historical files, let’s figure out how we can improve how we’re responding to these victims, what we did wrong, and call ourselves out, and ensure that people know that we’re moving in the right direction,” she said.
MacKinnon has also done legal work for the dioceses of Whitehorse and Victoria and has served on several panels for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“I am a person of faith, and I do believe in the idea that God gives you talents that you have to use for greater good on earth,” said MacKinnon, who is an active member of Immaculate Conception Parish in Vancouver.
Chief among her legal heroes is St. Thomas More, the English lawyer, judge, and philosopher, who famously paid with his life in 1535 for refusing to acknowledge Henry the VIII as head of the Church of England and to approve of the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
“He put God first,” MacKinnon said. “God before king and country. And I think in these woke times, when everybody worries about social approval and public opinion, the idea that God speaks to us in our heart is what should guide us and not the approbation of others.”
MacKinnon said much of her work, both for the Church and in public practice, has involved mediation, with a focus on sexual-harassment and sexual-abuse cases. “And I think if you ask anybody that I’ve done work with, they will say that I am a compassionate and kind person who tries to bring some humility and humanity to the process,” she said.
Her approach is to advise a client not what they can do, but what they should do. “It’s not to try to get the best deal, but to do the right thing,” she said. “When I am giving advice to my bishop, which I do over time, I’m not being asked, ‘What can we legally get away with, what’s the least amount we can pay?’, but I’m being asked, ‘What is the right way to deal with this?’ And that to me is the different type of practice of law, and it is the practice of law that I am drawn to.”
The archdiocese, in turn, appreciates the contributions she has made. “Mary Margaret has been a godsend,” said James Borkowski, the Archbishop’s Delegate for Operations. “She is an incredibly gifted lawyer and a big-hearted Catholic. Her work in addressing clerical sexual abuse and other challenging issues has been transformative for the archdiocese and called many of us deeper into the mission of the Church.”
MacKinnon, 64, is married to David Shaw and has three adult children – a two sons who graduated from Vancouver College and a daughter who graduated from LFA.
“Working with the Church has been really good for me in terms of the ability for me to be a working mom,” MacKinnon said. “I was able to coach kids’ basketball while I was discussing things with Archbishop [Adam] Exner, for example. I have been able to have a life that allowed me to be both a wife and a mom, and a lawyer, and that’s fantastic. I’m very blessed.”
MacKinnon was scheduled to formally receive her QC honour from Lieutenant-Governor Janet Austin at Government House in Victoria on the evening of July 6 but decided to stay home after coming into close contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19.