Chief Justice Geoffrey B. Morawetz will retire effective May 15, 2026.  He will do so after serving as Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court Justice for almost seven years and after being a judge for over 21 years.

Before his judicial career, Chief Justice Morawetz practiced law for 25 years, specializing in insolvency and restructuring law.  His expertise in these areas was consistently and widely recognized in both Canadian and international publications.  He is a named author of Bankruptcy and Insolvency Law of Canada and editor of the Canadian Bankruptcy Reports.  He is a fellow of both the Insolvency Institute of Canada (2005) and the American College of Bankruptcy (2010), as well as a member of the INSOL International and The International Insolvency Institute.  Since 2008, he has been an advisor to the Canadian Delegation at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law – Insolvency Law.

First appointed to the Court in 2005, he served for four years as the Team Leader of Toronto’s Commercial List, which hears complex commercial matters.  On December 18, 2013, he was appointed Regional Senior Justice of the Toronto Region and, on July 1, 2019, the Court’s Chief Justice.  During his time on the bench, he was named three times in Canadian Lawyer magazine as one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada” for his work in the justice system (2011, 2014, 2025).  He also serves as the current chair of the Judicial Insolvency Network, a network of judges from across the world, which serves as a platform to facilitate communications and cooperation amongst national courts in cross-border insolvency and restructuring matters.

Shortly after being appointed Chief Justice, he led the Ontario Superior Court of Justice through the COVID-19 pandemic, seizing the opportunity to expedite the court’s modernization.  This included overseeing the introduction of e-filing through Justice Services Online, the regular use of remote video appearances, the introduction of commercial grade technology into courtrooms, and the procurement and implementation of the Courts Digital Transformation, a globally unprecedented initiative providing the Court with a comprehensive and integrated filing, case management, and hearing management platform.  Along with Attorney General Doug Downey, he also launched the Civil Rules Review, a comprehensive review of the Rules of Civil Procedure to make civil proceedings more effective, relevant, responsive, and timely.

In 2012, he was honoured with the Distinguished Service Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal (Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, Georgia) and, in 2016, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Insolvency Section.

He is a graduate of the University of Western Faculty of Law (1978) and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1980.

The Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice is appointed by the Government of Canada on the advice of Cabinet and the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada.