Jacob Finkelman

Jacob Finkelman (January 17, 1907 – December 21, 2003) QC OC was a Canadian legal scholar and jurist. He was an authority on Canadian labour law.

Finkelman in the 1940s

Jacob Finkelman was born in Poltava on January 17, 1907.[1] He came to Canada with his parents eight months after he was born and settled in Hamilton, Ontario.[2][3] He received a BA in 1926, an MA in 1932, and an LLB in 1933, all from the University of Toronto.[1]

Finkelman became a lecturer at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1930.[4] William Paul McClure Kennedy, then dean of the faculty, spoke in favour of the appointment to Robert Falconer, the university's president.[5] When he was named an assistant professor in 1934, Finkelman was the first Jew to become a full-time professor at the university.[6] He was an assistant professor at the faculty from 1934 to 1939, an associate professor from 1939 to 1944, and a full professor from 1944 to 1954.[1]

Finkelman presided over his first labour arbitration in 1937, when he was asked by a garment union to adjudicate a dispute.[7] In 1944, Finkelman was named the first chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board.[8] He chaired the board until 1947, and then again from 1953 to 1967.[9] In 1967, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson named Finkelman the first chair of the Public Service Staff Relations Board (now the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board), a federal tribunal.[10]

Finkelman was named a King's Counsel in 1946.[1][11] He was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 1976[12] and received an honorary LLD from York University in 1977.[13]

Finklelman died on December 21, 2003, in Ottawa.[11]