Anthony Merchant

Anthony Merchant
Member of the Legislative Assembly for Regina Wascana
In office 1975–1978
Preceded by	Henry Baker
Succeeded by	Clinton Oliver White
Personal details
Born	Evatt Francis Anthony Merchant 1944 Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Pana Merchant
Residence	Regina, Saskatchewan
Alma mater	University of Saskatchewan
Occupation	Lawyer

Evatt Francis Anthony "Tony" Merchant, QC (born 1944) is a Canadian lawyer, businessman and former politician. He represented Regina Wascana in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as a Liberal member. Merchant was named a Queen's Counsel in 1995. He served in the army and naval reserves. Tony Merchant founded the Merchant Law in 1986. He is senior counsel at .

Personal Background[]

Merchant is a 5th generation lawyer^[1] and the three Merchant sons are similarly all lawyers. Merchant's father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great great grandfather were all lawyers in Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. His father was killed in action towards the end of hostilities in WWII, just after Tony was born. Captain Evatt F.A. Merchant had attended the Nova Scotia Catholic University, St. Francis Xavier, and later met Tony's mother, then Sally Smith at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Smith and Merchant families have long traditions in Nova Scotia and at St. FX. Later generations followed the example of Tony's father, his Grandfather Smith, his uncle Adrian Smith, all of whom attended St. Francis Xavier. His father, Captain , was a member of C Company of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (died 18 November 1944 and buried at Mierlo War Cemetery, the Netherlands).^[2] His mother, Maria Margharita "Sally" Merchant (d. 2007), was a television personality and political figure. He was raised by his mother as a single parent and became part of the Merchant political family in Saskatchewan. His maternal grandfather was Saskatchewan politician Vincent Reynolds Smith, later a judge, and his niece (sister's daughter) is television personality Amanda Lang.^[3] Tony's father, Evatt graduated from law school at Dalhousie.

Personal life[]

Merchant was born in 1944 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. He studied arts and law at the University of Saskatchewan and business administration at the University of Regina. He was admitted to the Saskatchewan bar in 1968, to the Alberta bar in 1976, to the British Columbia bar in 1977 and to the Arizona bar in 1987. He was also host for an open-line radio show in Saskatchewan and a freelance television interviewer with the CBC. In 1976 he was a candidate for the leadership of the provincial Liberal party. That post went instead to Ted Malone.^[4] His wife Pana was a member of Canada's senate (2002–2017).

Professional career[]

Anthony (Tony) Merchant's law firm—Merchant Law Group—dealt with over seven thousand claims, through trials and appeals of Indigenous peoples in Canada, who had been students in the Canadian Indian residential school system—a system which closed its last schools in 1996.^{[5]: 1 [6][7]}

Ethical Issues[]

Colin Thatcher trial[]

In 1983, Merchant became involved in the murder trial of Colin Thatcher, a Canadian politician from Saskatchewan who was eventually convicted of murdering his ex-wife, JoAnne Wilson. Merchant was convicted of criminal mischief and reprimanded by the Law Society of Saskatchewan (LSS) for an incident that evolved after Merchant visited the home where Ms. Wilson and Mr. Thatcher's daughter was residing and demanded that the daughter be surrendered to Mr. Thatcher after he murdered his wife.^[8] Additionally, Merchant testified at the trial of Mr. Thatcher as a defense witness. Merchant claimed that he had retained certain telephone records relating to calls from himself to Mr. Thatcher after Ms. Wilson was shot, but that there were several unexplained break-ins that resulted in the theft of the records. In his testimony, Merchant implied that the police were looking for the records and may have been behind the break-ins. Merchant subsequently changed his testimony to state that the break-ins had occurred before Mr. Thatcher was arrested, which resulting in the trial judge giving a specific jury instruction in relation to the reliability of Merchant's evidence.^[8]

Law Society Disciplinary Sanctions[]

Merchant had been disciplined by the LSS five times as of the year 2013.^[9] This included a three-month suspension from practicing law in 2012 in relation to payments he received related to a residential school claim.^[10]

More recently, in October 2020, the LSS announced a new decision that Merchant faced a pending suspension from practicing law, from February to September 2021, again in relation to payments received related to a residential school claim.^[10]

A disciplinary panel found that he had used intimidation to press a client into signing over to him $21,310.83 of a settlement that she had received as a residential school survivor in order to cover unrelated legal bills owed to Merchant by her son.^[11] Merchant had threatened his client with being able to "seize your assets, your car, your bank account, or whatever" if she refused to sign over the money.^[11] The Supreme Court of British Columbia had previously held that this amounted to an attempt to circumvent a prohibition in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement against assigning settlement payments to third parties, which was put in place to protect vulnerable residential school survivors, and ordered that the money be repaid with interest.^[12]

In late October, 2020, Merchant's counsel filed an Appeal with the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan, requesting that both the proposed suspension and the factual findings of the LSS be overturned.^{[citation needed]} The Court of Appeal has not yet set a date for hearing of Merchant's Appeal. In the meantime, Merchant continues to practice law without restrictions and the proposed suspension does not take effect.^[13]

2013 Offshore Leaks[]

Merchant's name appeared^[9][14] in documents released as part of the Offshore Leaks, a 2013 leak of documents related to offshore accounts that predated the similar 2016 Panama Papers and 2017 Paradise Papers.

The documents revealed that Merchant had transferred $1.7 million into offshore havens.^[9] A note in the files stated that the writer had "[r]eceived a letter from Mr. Merchant requesting that we do not disclose now or in the future any information to the authorities in Luxembourg, or anywhere".^[14]

Awards[]

In 2007, Merchant was voted the best lawyer in Regina by the Prairie Dog Magazine.^[15] Merchant was named a Queen's Counsel in 1995.

References[]