Talk:Patrick Kerwin

Style of address

@Omnipaedista and Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: Regarding this correction that changed it to "The Right Honourable", and this revert back to "The Honourable", according to the Canadian Government's [https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/protocol-guidelines-special-event/styles-address.html page on Styles of Address", the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is styled as "The Right Honourable (full name), P.C., Chief Justice of Canada", and retains this for life. I don't know if was in place at the time that Kerwin became Chief Justice, and if this styling is retroactive. -- Whpq (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Kerwin was not « Right Honourable ». It wasn’t automatic back then. Prior to 1967, to be « Rt Hon » you had to be sworn to the imperial Privy Council. Most CJC's were so sworn, since the JCPC was the final appellate body, and some CJC’s sat on it, notably CJC Duff, but not all were so sworn. After 1967, « RT Hon » in Canada was no longer linked to membership in the imperial Privy Council and was granted as a Canadian honour. Kerwin missed out, because he was Chief Justice in the 1950s, after abolition of JCPC appeals, but before the new domesticated « Rt Hon ». See this list of former CJC’s at the SCC website: https://www.scc-csc.ca/judges-juges/cfcju-jucp-eng.aspx I will change it back. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 10:17, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the explanation. You don't need to change anything back because your edit was not reverted. I thought your edit was likely correct as I saw that the Supreme Court's bio on Kerwin says "The Honourable Patrick Kerwin, P.C.", but that did not square with the web page I posted above that details the usage. Your explanation fills in the gaps very nicely. I appreciate you taking the time to provide the detailed explanation. -- Whpq (talk) 14:20, 28 November 2023 (UTC)