Russell Brown "Power, and its Separation" UBC Constitutional Lecture

How should we under the separation of powers in Canada? The Hon. Russell Brown (former puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada) explores this question, and offers a critique of recent case Canada (Attorney General) v Power, in his 2026 UBC Constitutional Lecture. Justice Russell Brown was born in Vancouver on September 15, 1965, and raised in Burns Lake, British Columbia. He holds degrees from the University of British Columbia (BA), the University of Victoria (LLB) and the University of Toronto (LLM, SJD). He was admitted to the Bars of British Columbia (1995) and Alberta (2008), and practiced at Davis & Company (now DLA Piper LLP) in Vancouver from 1995 to 1996 and at Carfra & Lawton (now Carfra Lawton LLP) in Victoria from 1996 to 2004. From 2008 to 2013, he was associate counsel to Miller Thomson LLP. From 2004 to 2013, Justice Brown was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta, variously as professor and associate dean. His main areas of practice were commercial law, medical negligence, public authority liability, insurance law and trusts and estates. Justice Brown is the author of a treatise on claims under negligence law for economic loss, a contributing author to a textbook on public authority liability, as well as the author or co-author of over 40 published law review articles, book chapters, review essays and forward essays on tort law, property law and civil justice. He is a regular contributor to academic and professional conference proceedings in Canada and internationally, and in Canadian judicial education seminars. Justice Brown presently serves on the editorial board of the University of Toronto Law Journal and the advisory board of the Legal Writing Academy at the University of Ottawa. Prior to his judicial career, he served on various committees of the Law Society of Alberta, including those on credentials and education, and civil practice, and was a member of the governing board of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. He also served as chair of the Health Law Institute of the University of Alberta, chair of the University Appeals Board and chair of the Professional Review Board at the University of Alberta. He was appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta on February 7, 2013, and to the Court of Appeal of Alberta on March 7, 2014. Justice Brown also served as a Judge of the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories and a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Nunavut. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on August 31, 2015. Justice Brown is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and previously served on the Advisory Board to the Salvation Army in Victoria and in Edmonton (where he also served as board chair). He retired on June 12, 2023. Justice Brown retired from the Supreme Court in 2023 and took up a position as Associate Counsel for Hunter Litigation Chambers in Vancouver. This video is the second recorded "UBC Constitutional Lecture", an annual event at UBC's Okanagan campus. Past lectures have included Justice Suzanne Côté (Supreme Court of Canada) and Justice Malcolm Rowe (Supreme Court of Canada), Justice Bradley W. Miller (Court of Appeal for Ontario) and Justice Mary Moreau (Supreme Court of Canada). If you are interested in studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at UBC’s beautiful Okanagan campus, please visit our webpage and consider applying for our PPE program: https://epp.ok.ubc.ca/ This event was filmed at UBC Okanagan on September 3 2026