Irwin Cotler - Politics

Politics

Though he intended his foray into politics to be a brief departure from his academic career, this changed on December 12, 2003 when Prime Minister Paul Martin called upon him to enter Cabinet as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

He recommended the appointment of numerous women and aboriginal judges, including of two women to the Supreme Court of Canada in August 2004: Louise Charron and Rosalie Abella, making the Supreme Court the most gender-equity high court in the world.

Cotler attempted to introduce several bills to decriminalize marijuana.

On February 22, 2006, the Liberal Party appointed Cotler Critic for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the opposition shadow cabinet for the 39th Canadian Parliament. On 18 January 2007, Cotler was appointed Critic for Human Rights by newly elected leader Stéphane Dion.

In January, 2009, Irwin Cotler was named Special Counsel on Human Rights and International Justice for the Liberal Party, under Michael Ignatieff, and subsequently Critic for Human Rights.

In the 2011 election, Cotler fended off a serious challenge from former city councillor Saulie Zajdel, a longtime Liberal supporter running as a Conservative who lost by only 2,500 votes. It was only the third time that the Liberals have been seriously threatened in Mount Royal since initially winning it in 1940, and the closest that a centre-right party has come to winning anywhere in Montreal since 1993. In May 2011, Cotler was named Justice and Human Rights Critic by interim Liberal leader Bob Rae.