OTTAWA — David Lametti loves the law, he said just after being sworn in as Canada's new justice minister.
"I know it's a cliche to say that, but I do," the 56-year-old said outside Rideau Hall. "I have done my best to teach and to think about the ways in which law has an impact on our daily lives. I'll continue to do that."
Lametti is the child of Italian immigrants. As a boy, he went to construction sites with his father, a carpenter who founded his own construction company. His mother was a caterer in the Niagara region after his father's early death.
His education took him from the University of Toronto to McGill University, to Yale Law School and Oxford University, where he co-captained the Oxford Blues men's hockey team with Mark Carney, who'd become governor of the Bank of Canada.
Ex-teammate Trevor Farrow called Lametti smart, funny and highly organized, a guy who took charge of the team and organized trips and games. Farrow, now associate dean of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, said Lametti always had something nice to say about teammates and never took himself too seriously even when he was focused on the game.
Please welcome @BernJordanMP, who becomes Minister of Rural Economic Development: https://t.co/nX6jcJniDE pic.twitter.com/SKlIxOYfU2
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 14, 2019
During a 2012 lunchtime seminar at the University of Cambridge — the video of which is posted online — Lametti spoke about how he was a bit of a philosophy junkie and sat in on lectures at Oxford, which led to him focus on the intersection of legal and ethical ideas.
Lametti became a law professor and a founding member of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy at McGill. Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse, the centre's current director, said Lametti's interest is in how the law influences public policy and where both need improvement.
"He's a good scholar, a good academic, but he needs a position where he can make a difference ... and translate what he knows into something concrete," Moyse said, adding it was partly why Lametti go into politics.
Lametti won the riding of LaSalle-Emard-Verdun — once held by former prime minister Paul Martin — in 2015 and served as a parliamentary secretary for the last three years.
The father of three was also involved in his community, including as an assistant coach for an under-16 competitive soccer team.
Here's a quick look at the rest of the ministers involved in Monday's cabinet shuffle.
Bernadette Jordan
- First woman elected to represent the Nova Scotia riding of South Shore-St. Margarets
- Spent eight years prior to politics as part of a team raising millions of dollars for health care in the region around Bridgewater, N.S.
- A former president of the Atlantic Community Newspaper Association
Seamus O'Regan
- Former television personality who spent a decade as co-host of CTV's Canada AM show
- From St. John's, Newfoundland, and raised in Goose Bay, Labrador
- Former executive assistant to justice minister and later senior policy adviser to premier in the Newfoundland and Labrador government
- Appointed minister of veterans affairs in 2017
Jody Wilson-Raybould
- First Indigenous woman to hold the post of justice minister and attorney general
- Worked as a provincial prosecutor in Vancouver after being called to the bar in 2000
- Former regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations.
- Descendant of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk and Laich-Kwil-Tach peoples
Jane Philpott
- Spent three decades as a physician — in Niger and then as a family doctor in Stouffville, Ont.
- Former chief of family medicine at Markham Stouffville Hospital and taught medicine at the University of Toronto.
- Previously served as health minister and Indigenous services minister