Law360 Canada (September 25, 2026, 12:51 PM EDT) -- Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté is thinking about what life after the bench might look like, she tells Law360 Canada.
The court’s impactful and most prolific judge, who turned 68 this week with no apparent loss of drive or energy, says she is healthy and still loves the work that has earned her a reputation as a trailblazer and original thinker. (See also
here.)
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté, who turned 68 this week, says she still loves her work but ‘stay tuned, because of course I’m thinking about my future. I’m thinking should I stay until the age of 75?’
But the “great dissenter,” who has written her fair share of important majority and unanimous judgments, discloses she has not decided what she will do after completing 12 years of service at the Supreme Court in November.
“If I would tell you I’m not thinking about my future, it would not be an honest answer,” she reveals during a candid and rare interview to mark her upcoming anniversary.
During the wide-ranging conversation, the bar’s representative on the high court shared her thoughts on diverse subjects, including artificial intelligence, the top three judgments during her time at the court, and what prospects she sees for intervener counsel returning to the Supreme Court’s courtroom from Zoom. (See
part two of Law360 Canada’s exclusive interview.)
As to whether she will depart the bench before reaching mandatory retirement seven years from now, “I would love to say to you, ‘Stay tuned,’” she tells Law360 Canada. “Because of course I’m thinking about my future. I’m thinking, ‘Should I stay until the age of 75?’”
“I have not made that decision yet,” she discloses.
But her thinking about a post-bench future began last year as the Supreme Court celebrated its 150th anniversary.
It “gave me reasons to pause and to think about what we have accomplished,” she explains.
The judges’ last hearings in their historic Ottawa courthouse last May, before the Supreme Court’s 1940s-era building was mothballed for a decade of restoration and renovation, also prompted reflection.
“Speaking on my part, it was quite emotional because I said, ‘I was really lucky and privileged to be able to be a judge on this court and to sit in this building,’” she recalls. “I felt quite overwhelmed by that and the fact that I have that privilege, which is not offered to all Canadians.”
Her longstanding reverence for the court and its importance to the country is evident in a decades-old photograph of herself, as a young solo practitioner from the Gaspé Peninsula, posed proudly in front of the Supreme Court during her honeymoon in the capital.
Health is a consideration as she makes future plans, says the judge, who keeps up an extraordinary pace. She typically rises at 4:45 a.m. in the weeks the Supreme Court hears appeals, arrives at the court at 6:30 a.m. and works two and a half hours before attending the regular 9 a.m. meeting with her fellow judges before the hearing.
“Presently I’m healthy,” she observes.
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté holds a decades-old photograph of herself, as a young solo practitioner from the Gaspé Peninsula, posed proudly in front of the top court’s iconic Ottawa building during her honeymoon in the capital.
“It depends also on my companion, because of his age,” she says of her partner, the distinguished Canadian litigator and prominent bar leader Gérald R. Tremblay, counsel with Sarrazin+Plourde in Montreal.
“We have a 15-year difference in age, and of course I would like to spend time with him when he’s still in good shape,” she explains. “But my plan, [if] let’s say I would leave the court,… is to continue to work, to be involved,” she says. “I would not see myself doing nothing.”
“I think I have been lucky. I have a lot of energy,” she says of the trait inherited from her mother who, with the judge’s father, instilled in her the value of hard work.
But Justice Côté’s life is not all work and no play. She and Tremblay are renowned hosts, often entertaining friends on weekends in their suburban Montreal home.
On such occasions, the judge does all the cooking. “I don’t have a caterer,” she says.
She also derives pleasure from doing her own housework, including vacuuming, washing floors and laundry.
“When I do my ironing, I’m thinking about my files,” she says. “It helps me. I’m working.”
The couple enjoys music — “classical, pop, country, everything,” she says. “And we love dancing, even if we are just the two of us.… [On a] Saturday night, for instance,… we can dance for an hour and we are having a lot of fun.”
Fun for the judge includes reading widely for interest, gardening and housework.
“I love doing my cleaning,” she says. “I don’t have the time to do it every day like I would like. But … [on] a Saturday morning when I get up and I say to my companion, ‘Ha! This morning I’m doing the floors of the house,’ and then I have my basket and my [cleaning] products, I feel happy.”
What does the judge prescribe for preventing burnout?
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté tells Law360 Canada's Ottawa bureau chief, Cristin Schmitz, ‘I hope that during my time here I would have helped to reinforce public trust in the Supreme Court.’
“Find something that you love — you’re not obliged to do it for 12 hours a day — and do it. It’s very relaxing,” she offers. “Like during the year, I don’t have time to read books other than law [books]. But during my vacation, I’m going to read books, all sorts of books.”
The judge enjoys reading about crime but her eclectic summer reading list included a new book on discoveries off the beaten path in Paris and the bestselling memoir
Ordures! Journal d’un vidangeur (
Trash! A Garbageman’s Story), by Simon Paré-Poupart, a Montreal sociologist and garbage collector.
To stay healthy, Justice Côté says she usually goes to bed at 10 p.m. She likes to walk and run at least five kilometres on a treadmill three days a week and then more on weekends.
Re-engaging with the business world in her eventual Supreme Court afterlife is a possibility, says the judge who helped many local businesses during eight years as a general practitioner in the Gaspé Peninsula, where she led local chambers of commerce.
As a corporate-commercial litigator, she went on to represent a number of big companies in high-profile matters, successively leading the litigation groups at Stikeman Elliott LLP and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Montreal.
By the time she joined the Supreme Court at age 56, she had cemented a reputation as a formidable litigator.
The judge also made history as the first female barrister appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada directly from private practice — taking on the role of the bar’s representative that was played previously by other star litigators such as Ian Binnie and John Sopinka.
Writing her memoir is also a real possibility post-retirement as the judge made copious notes and kept files from her 34 years at the bar.
“But I may decide to continue on this court too because … I have the passion for the law,” Justice Côté’ says. “I still have ‘
le feu sacré.’ I still love my files and this is why I can invest so much time and energy in those files.”
The judge recalls her words, on joining the Supreme Court in 2014, “I hope that at the end, when I will leave, I would have been able to make a difference.”
“So if you ask me today, if that goal of mine, that objective was accomplished, I think yes,… that my contribution so far has made a difference,” she observes. “So I feel good about my work.”
What hopes does she have for her legacy?
“That all my dissenting opinions, or most of them,” she laughs, “become the law one day.”
“I hope that all these opinions I have written, my successors will read them, and say, ‘Hey, she was not crazy!’ like we do with [some of] Madam Justice [Claire] L’Heureux-Dubé’s dissenting opinions,” [which later became majority views at the Supreme Court].
Most of all, says Justice Côté, “I hope that during my time here, I would have helped to reinforce public trust in the Supreme Court.”
“I would like people to say, ‘Yes, she did not agree with … everyone all the time, but we could trust her,’” she says. “That for me would be a great achievement,… for the public to say about me that they could trust me.”
Photos of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté: Ashley Fraser Photography
If you have any information, story ideas or news tips for Law360 Canada, please contact Cristin Schmitz at cristin.schmitz@lexisnexis.ca or call 613-820-2794.