Ivan Cleveland Rand

Rand, Ivan Cleveland

Ivan Cleveland Rand, judge, labour and international arbitrator, educator (b at Moncton, NB 27 Apr 1884; d at London, Ont 2 Jan 1969). He achieved prominence in labour relations for his development, in the 1945 WINDSOR STRIKE, of the RAND FORMULA for dealing with closed union shops; in international affairs for his leading role in the UN Special Committee on Palestine (1947); as a jurist for his uncompromising civil-libertarian and natural-rights orientation on the Supreme Court of Canada (1943-59); and as educator as inaugural dean of Western's Faculty of Law (1959-64). The frugal, principled, eloquent and often brusque son of a Baptist railway mechanic, Rand was committed to judicial activism in pursuit of social justice, a commitment encouraged at Harvard under mentor Louis D. Brandeis, and in a frontier litigation practice at Medicine Hat, Alta (1913-20). After working as a lawyer in Moncton (1920-24) and a brief foray into politics as Liberal attorney general of NB (1924-25), Rand was corporate counsel to Canadian National Rys (1926-43). He was elevated to the Supreme Court by the Mackenzie KING government, and his judicial profile later led to his appointment to various royal commissions.