Linda Lee Oland

Justice Linda Lee Oland’s mother came to Canada in 1948, one year after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, when her father was finally able to bring over his bride from China. By then, three of Justice Oland’s elder siblings had been born in China.

Justice Linda Lee Oland graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1976 and was called to the bar in Nova Scotia shortly thereafter, probably the first Chinese Canadian to do so in that province.

In 1998, she became the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.  Two years after that, she became the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed to a Court of Appeal anywhere in Canada.

Watch here the interview with Justice Linda Lee Oland: