Findlay Forks native honored

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Ontario Superior Court Judge Rose Toodick Boyko says she never had big dreams but has pursued interests that are meaningful to her, taking full advantage of opportunities she sees. This simple recipe for success has accompanied her since her earliest memories of life on a trapline on the Parsnip River at Findlay Forks, B.C.

Nevertheless, Boyko says she is "thrilled" to be recognized by her peers as this year's National Aboriginal Achievement Award winner in the Law and Justice category.

Her first career was nursing, but that was just the beginning. A desire for more education led Boyko to enroll at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. in 1974. By the time she graduated with her BA in 1977, she had decided on a medical career. Unfortunately, none of the several medical schools where she applied would accept her.

This is one of those times when a disappointing situation ended in a good way. Boyko saw that although one door was closing on her, she had other talents. It would have been easy to "settle," but that has never been the judge's solution to problems. Instead, she grasped the opportunity to study law. That decision led to her eventual appointment as the first Aboriginal woman Superior Court judge in Canada.

Boyko was born in 1950. Her mother was from the Tsek'ehne First Nation at McLeod Lake, B.C. and her father was a Ukrainian immigrant. She has fond memories of her first five years on her father's trapline, when the family enjoyed the rural environment. Rose left British Columbia before the trapline was flooded by the construction of a dam around 1967.

After graduating from high school in Montreal, she entered nurse's training at the venerable Royal Victoria Hospital there in 1969. She graduated with her RN diploma in 1972 at the age of 22. Then it was off to serve remote Cree communities on the Quebec side of the James Bay region. She says she was comfortable living in the bush because of her early upbringing.

She began her nursing career with Medical Services Branch in Wemindji, Que. She learned to speak some Cree, enough to get along without an interpreter in the clinic. After a year's service, Boyko was motivated to acquire further training in northern nursing at the University of Western Ontario.

From there, she took her enhanced skills to Lac Mistasini, about 50 miles out of Chibougamau in northcentral Quebec. Then she was posted to Fort George, Que. in the region of what is now called Chisasibi. She saw a lot of towns up the James Bay Coast before the dam flooded much of northern Quebec and destroyed Fort George. This was the second time a dam project wiped out some of Rose's past, but before that happened she had a new career in sight. With medical school ruled out, she instead completed pre-law studies in the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Law Program.

Returning to Ontario, Boyko's legal studies consumed most of her time between 1978 and 1980.

The Honourable Madam Justice Rose Toodick Boyko was called to the Ontario bar in 1982 and was admitted to the Saskatchewan bar in 1988. She took the middle name Toodick to honor her Aboriginal grandfather, Mack Toodick, and as a reminder of her Aboriginal roots.

Native cultural beliefs are important to the judge, but true to her mixed heritage she has also embraced complementary teachings from other philosophies.

"I think fostering a spiritual life is necessary," she says, relating that she attends powwows and other traditional gatherings when she can.

New Brunswick Provincial Court Judge, Graydon Nicholas, who has known Boyko for a decade, says one of the outstanding things about his friend is that she has "maintained her Aboriginal values and identity" while pursuing goals and achieving success in the larger Canadian society.

She launched her public service career in the federal civil service, becoming attached to the Department of Justice in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Then she went on a government interchange program from 1989 to 1991 with the Quebec Deartment of Justice in Quebec City. After that was a stint with Indian affairs' Indian Taxation Secretariat in Ottawa, where she remained until her appointment to the judiciary.

Today Judge Boyko sits in chambers in Newmarket, Ont. in the Central East Judicial Region, where she presides over family law trials, criminal trials and civil trials. She still participates in the Indigenous Bar Association, of which she was vice president early in the decade.

Currently vice president of the Canadian Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges, she has injected Aboriginal content - in the form of ceremonies, drummers and dancers - into at least one of that association's conferences.

Judge Boyko has always had a keen interest in social issues. She is interested in sentencing circles and in the use of circles for healing victims and offenders. Although she has not yet tried the concept, she views circles as "a powerful alternative to deal with disputes." That is why, as a member of the Board of Trustees at Queen's University, she has taken advantage of the opportunity to have the topic introduced into Aboriginal education.

In 1997, Judge Boyko received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree for promoting Aboriginal legal education at Queen's. In addition, she has been a legal advisor for several government departments, has worked on legislative reform and has been involved in legal policy analysis and teaching.

"I would encourage those interested in the pursuit of law to retain their traditional values so these values can be used to enrich the way we settle disputes. The majority system does not give all the answers and it is only through striving together that the best solutions can be found."