OTTAWA – If you ask anyone on the regulatory side of this industry, they’ll tell you that Bob Buchan and Peter Grant are two of the most admired legal minds in the country.
Together, Buchan, of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin and Grant, of McCarthy Tetrault, created and organized the Law Society of Upper Canada’s New Developments in Communications Law and Policy Conference, held every two years in Ottawa. It’s a must-attend for those working the regulatory trenches in Ottawa.
As stewardship of the conference has been handed over to co-chairs Grant Buchanan of McCarthy Tetrault and Laurence Dunbar of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, the Law Society and conference organizers took time at lunch Thursday to honour Buchan and Grant for all of their work in communications law in Canada.
“It has been my pleasure and privilege to call him a friend and advisor over the past 30 years,” said Rogers Communications EVP and vice-chair Phil Lind, speaking about Buchan – and recalling when Buchan, the late Chris Johnston and the late Charles Dalfen struck out on their own to create what was a boutique law firm at the time, Johnston & Buchan, which would concentrate solely on the Canadian communications business.
Before long, and after building a blue-chip client list that began with Rogers Communications, “there was very little going on across the river at the CRTC that they didn’t have a hand in,” noted Lind, who added: “Some of our better strategic moves over the years were suggested by Bob.” In fact, added Lind, there was nary a big deal done by Ted Rogers as he built his empire where Buchan wasn’t by Ted’s side.
Peter Grant was often on the other side of the issue when he and Buchan would meet at CRTC hearings, for example. “He’s a remarkable Canadian, a Renaissance man,” said TV producer and lawyer Stephen Stohn in honouring Grant, whom he called “my mentor”.
“He always knew the big picture but he would simultaneously be thinking of the tiny details,” added Stohn. “His great intellect works on several planes all at once.”
In saying thanks, Buchan noted how he and Grant were so often on the opposite side of many issues but always remained collegial and professed his happiness to be working in an area of law which cherishes “civility and professional respect for those on the other side… It has been the hallmark of the communications bar in Canada,” he said. “It doesn’t mark all of the bars in this country but it does for the communications bar and may it remain so,” said Buchan.
Grant lauded the communications lawyers for the same level of professionalism and also the industry itself, adding: “We’re so lucky to be in a field with such variety and technological challenge and change.”
– Greg O’Brien
