Hon. Brent Cotter: Honourable senators, Paul Cronin Weiler passed away on July 7 of this year at the age of 82. He was born in Port Arthur, grew up in northern Ontario and studied law at Osgoode Hall Law School. Many, including his close friend and roommate in those days, Justice Dennis O’Connor, describe Paul Weiler as the most outstanding graduate in the history of Osgoode Hall Law School. He subsequently taught at Osgoode, where so many great legal minds have taught, before moving to B.C. to chair the British Columbia Labour Relations Board and rewrite B.C.’s labour laws, themselves a model for labour legislation across North America.

Mr. Weiler served as an adviser to Prime Minister Trudeau in the constitutional negotiations of 1979-81. It was his influence that led to the adoption of the “notwithstanding” clause into the Constitution that broke a logjam in negotiations. Former premier Roy Romanow described Paul Weiler’s paper and passion regarding the “notwithstanding” clause as key to that resolution.

He was subsequently lured to Harvard Law School. There his abilities and commitment to reform and improvement in the field of labour law led to him being asked by then-president Bill Clinton to serve as counsel to the Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations.

I came to know Paul Weiler through sports. All of the Weilers, but particularly Paul and his brothers Bobby and Joe, are sports enthusiasts — some would say fanatics. Paul’s own enthusiasm led to his combining his academic interest in labour law with sport and, over time, becoming a beloved iconic professor at Harvard and dean of sports law academics across North America. He was greatly admired by those who worked in that field, of whom I was one.

There was a deep affection for him among his family and friends and the thousands of students he taught, many of whom are in this chamber, and some have risen to the highest ranks in the sports world. One of his students, Brian Burke, now president of hockey operations with the Pittsburgh Penguins, described Paul Weiler as a pioneer in the field of law and sport. His leading works, Sports and the Law, is the sports law bible in North America.

Approximately 20 years ago, Paul Weiler contracted a rare, degenerative neurological disease, from which he died in July, with family and his devoted wife, Florrie Darwin, at his side. Consistent with his positive, genial personality, he was upbeat to the end. As his brother Joe told me, “For Paul, every day was a gift; the glass was always half full.”

Mr. Weiler was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2016 — a great and honourable Canadian and an inspiration to many people including, if I may say, Senator Gold and me. Thank you.