Donald George Hugh Bowman (retired Chief Justice, Tax Court of Canada) passed away peacefully on June 8, 2022. He is survived by his wife Marjorie, his brother David, his children, Laurel (James Young), Patrick (Barbara Cox) and Victoria (Charles Van Vliet), and his grandchildren Kathleen, Julia, Piers, Anitra, and Edward.

Our father was born on a hundred-acre farm in Ariss, Ontario, in 1933 – the same year the farm’s barn burned down. As his father Howard remarked, “Two disasters in one year!” This may explain our father’s unorthodox sense of humour. Whether barbequing at the family cottage in a chef's apron and hat - and nothing else - or firing back, when a doctor demanded a spoken sentence after surgery, “The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides!”, humour was rarely far from his side.

After his primary education in a one-room schoolhouse near Ariss, he made his way to Victoria University in Toronto on a languages scholarship, becoming fluent in French and German, and meeting our mother Marjorie Holmes. Realising that he had met the love of his life, he proposed on their fourth date, and frequently thereafter. It was in Cologne that she finally accepted, and they married in 1956. His instincts were spot on: her unwavering support was instrumental to his success as a lawyer and later as a judge. Eschewing an existence of, in his phrase, “bovine domesticity”, they created a household where intellectual curiosity and lively debate were prized. A frequent pastime was to play tapes of classical literature while driving, periodically pausing playback to discuss the commentary.

His early jobs hint at his diverse interests: oil well roughneck in Alberta; lumberjack in B.C.; Fuller Brush salesman and driving examiner in Ontario; gym teacher in Fergus; and English teacher in Germany. He enrolled in law at the University of Toronto, studying full time while our mother supported the family as a teacher and looked after their first child, Laurel.

He passed on his deep love of reading to all his children, not only as habit, but in the form of a sprawling, eclectic library of subjects mainstream and esoteric, including historical collections of bibles, encyclopaedias and law books. He was famous for going nowhere without his collection of reference books, including the suitcase stuffed with thirty pounds of books that attended him on his vacation in China in 2010.

Both at the family farm, carefully restored and preserved according to his vision, and at the family cottage, he was ever the unpredictable life of the party, pressing a drink into your hand one moment and blasting Saint Saens’ organ concerto across the lake the next. He adored his grandchildren, taking an interest in their studies when he wasn’t taking them to the dollar store.

After his call to the bar in 1962 he took a position at the Department of Justice in Ottawa, becoming director of the tax litigation section six years later. In 1971 he joined a partnership at the new Toronto law office of Stikeman, Elliott, Robarts and Bowman to lead the tax practice.

When, in 1991, he accepted a judgeship on the Tax Court of Canada, he finally felt he had arrived at the place he was truly suited for – somewhere that his talents were fully engaged and where he could make an enduring contribution. And contribute he did. Moving up to Assistant Chief Justice (or “Ass C J”, as he cheerfully pointed out on his letterhead) in 2003, he was appointed Chief Justice in 2005 before retiring at 75, as judges must, in 2008. Still highly energetic, he returned to private practice at Denton's (formerly FMC).

But it was in his judgements that his contribution was strongest. He preferred to write them himself, crafting them in longhand with a wooden fountain pen in a careful but almost entirely illegible hand. His deeply thoughtful intellect and creative flair were evident in them all. Still frequently cited, his judgements were snapped up eagerly by tax law devotees across Canada and appreciated as much for their clarity and depth of analysis as for their uniquely “Bowmanesque” readability. Although humble about his accomplishments, he was often described as the Lord Denning of the Canadian Tax Court.

He was sometimes called a “people’s judge”, but he would deny that. He argued that he went where the law required, but where that law was ambiguous or the tax department heavy-handed, he might incline toward the taxpayer.

This strong, earthy sense of right and wrong and his instinct for the pithy phrase – his judgements are quoted almost as often as they're cited – were among the reasons that the Donald G.H. Bowman National Tax Moot was founded in 2011. The moot, an annual, mock tax court competition for law school students from across the country, continues to honour his contribution to Canadian tax jurisprudence.

Although his professional contributions were impressive, he often said that he was prouder of his family than of any contributions he may have made to the law.

We will hold a celebration of life for him on September 23rd at four pm at the Mount Pleasant Funeral Home at 375 Mount Pleasant Avenue in Toronto, and an ash ceremony at the family farm on September 25th. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (http://unhcr.org). A link to livestream the Celebration of Life will be available at the top of this page at approximately 3:45 pm on September 23rd and a recording will be posted shortly afterwards under the "Media" tab on this page.