Ivan Rand

Who was Ivan Rand?

Ivan Cleveland Rand, CC was a Canadian lawyer, politician, academic, and Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, the son of Nelson Rand and Minnie Turner, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Allison University in 1909. In 1912, he received a Bachelor of Law degree from Harvard Law School. He was called to the bar of New Brunswick in 1912. From 1912 to 1920, he practiced law in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Returning to Moncton in 1920, he joined the Canadian National Railways as a counsel.

In 1924, he was named Attorney General of New Brunswick and was a member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick from February to June 1925.

On April 22, 1943, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1945, he developed the Rand formula requiring payment of trade union dues by all employees in the unit affected by a collective agreement, whether or not the employees are members of the union.

In 1947, he was Canada's representative on the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. Rand's meeting with Reverend William Lovell Hull, a fellow Canadian, changed Rand's understanding of Zionism. Rand became the central and most influential swing vote on UNSCOP in favor of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the eventual creation of the State of Israel.