Milt Harradence - Legal Career

Legal Career

Harradence retired from politics and returned to his legal practise as a criminal defence lawyer. The target of a number of death threats due to his legal work, he was one of the few people in the country granted a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

In the 1970s, he was asked by the province to investigate allegations of brutality by prison guards at the Calgary Correctional Institute. While he cleared the guards his report criticized the prison system.

The Pierre Trudeau government’s handling of the 1973 energy crisis and his treatment of Western Canada created a reason for the Committee for Western Independence in early 1975. Milt Harradence was involved in the Independent Alberta Association aimed at breaking Alberta's oil industry away from Ottawa's control. This created a great deal of embarrassment for Trudeau. Harradence's cousin, Jack Horner, was a cabinet minister in the Trudeau government.

In spite of this, one of Trudeau's final acts before leaving office, saw Harradence appointed to the Alberta Court of Appeal in 1979 where he sat sat as a judge until his retirement in 1997. He died from cancer on February 28, 2008.