Ron Ellis, QC

RON ELLIS, QC, BASc, LLB, PhD (Law), is an experienced administrative law lawyer, academic, adjudicator and tribunal administrator who has spoken and written extensively on administrative justice system issues. His Ph.D. dissertation, completed in January 2009, and entitled: “Executive Branch Justice: Canada’s ‘Official Courts’”, addresses the structural flaws in Canada’s administrative justice system, and proposes a transformative reform.

His related practice experience includes:

• Eleven years as a management labour lawyer.
• Seven years on the Osgoode faculty, in five of which he served as a poverty law lawyer and Director/Co-Director of the Parkdale Community Legal Services clinic where he experienced the problems of dysfunctional tribunals from the perspective of an advocate;
• 12 years, from 1985 to 1997, as the inaugural Chair and CEO of the Ontario Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal (WCAT) (now the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal).

During the latter period Ellis had the principal responsibility for the design and oversight of WCAT’s structures, practices and procedures and for its management and administration, particularly with respect to process and decision quality. He was the principal author of WCAT’s Code of Professional Responsibility for Tribunal Members. He also was actively engaged in the Tribunal’s casework, having chaired during those years a total of approximately 150 hearing panels and been principally responsible for the written decisions in those cases, of which approximately 50 are reported in the WCAT Reporter (W.C.A.T.R. – 1986 to 1998).

During his term as Chair of WCAT, Ellis was also actively involved in the administrative-justice education and reform work of the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals (CCAT) and of the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators (SOAR). He was a member of the CCAT Board of Directors from 1986 to 1994; co-chair of the 1989, annual CCAT National Conference; the inaugural President of SOAR from 1992 to 1996; a member of the SOAR Education Committee from 1997 to 2000 and chair of SOAR’s Adjudicator Training Course, 1999/2000. He is the recipient of the 1997 SOAR Medal and of the 2007 CCAT Medal. He is also an experienced labour arbitrator, and for the past five years he was enrolled in Osgoode’s graduate program as a Ph.D. student (subject: administrative justice), completing that program in January. During the same period he was co-counsel for the Petitioner in the McKenzie case.

Email: srellis@idirect.com
Ph: 416.425.7412
Fax: 416.425.5096