Kenneth C. Binks, Q.C.

Justice Kenneth Charles Binks, Queen’s Counsel, passed away September 14, 2018 at the age of 93. His funeral is tomorrow. He was a giant who lived life well, gave back much more than he took out, and the world is a better place because of him.

Although he acted for the great and the powerful, including Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, Ken always found time for pro bono work for the less fortunate. After a term as a Member of Parliament, he became a judge on the Ottawa Bench, always fair and practical.

Ken found time to serve his community, his church, his profession, and above all else, his family. He represented everything which is great about our profession and our country.

But there’s more.

Ken served as a mentor to Ottawa’s legal community. One day, when we were talking about “giving back”, he casually pulled a handwritten list from his top drawer. On it were written the names of about half of Ottawa’s great litigators. “What do they have in common?”, he asked me.

“I don’t know, Ken, what do they have in common?’

“Well, they all articled for us!”, he chortled with obvious pride.

But there’s a much more important part of the story.

You see, although Ken would serve as Member of Parliament and as a judge, and although he would go on to become a friend and lawyer to the rich and famous, his beginnings were modest. Very modest. Growing up in a working-class district of Ottawa, he left school in his mid-teens to help support his family, taking menial jobs in the Civil Service.

And that could have been the end of the story.

But it wasn’t, and this is where the story becomes especially relevant to you and me.

You see, when Ken was a lowly book clerk at the Parliamentary Library, his supervisor recognized intellect and talent. He began to badger Ken, without relent, to become Justice Kenneth C. Binks, QC. The boss believed in a young kid in his employ, even if the young kid had no idea of his potential.

Ken attended night school at the then new High School of Commerce (he delighted in recounting that all the other students were nuns), and earned his Senior Matriculation. Never looking back, he went on to Queens, Cambridge and finally the University of Saskatchewan where he earned his law degree.

Called to the Bars of Saskatchewan and Ontario in 1951, Ken settled into practice in Ottawa, and like his mentor, began to give back. And the rest is history.

But that’s not the real point of the story. The most important part of the story, you see, is not about Kenneth C. Binks, Q.C., but about his boss in the Library. Because without him the rest of the story would never have happened.

You probably have a young Ken Binks in your life– a younger person of talent and ability who needs a strong hand of guidance and encouragement (and maybe even a kick in the pants) to become everything they could be.

So, ask yourself: who is your young Ken Binks?

(I have every confidence that Ken approves of this article.)