Hugh L. Fraser is an Olympian and a recognized international expert in sports law, now retired
from an outstanding career as a justice of the Ontario Court of Justice.
Fraser came to Canada from Jamaica when he was seven years old. At the time, his father,
Cecil Allan Fraser, was almost finished law school. In 1961, Cecil Fraser graduated; he was the
first Black student to study at and graduate from the Queen’s University law program.
Hugh Fraser followed in his father’s footsteps, first receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from
Queen’s University in 1974, then studying law at the University of Ottawa, graduating in 1977.
He was called to the bar in 1979. Fraser then worked as a barrister in private practice, as counsel
to the Canadian Department of Justice and as corporate counsel for a multinational technology
firm. He has also served on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
In 1993, Fraser was appointed judge of the Ontario Court. In 2013, he became senior justice for
the East Region of Ontario, managing and advising more than 70 judges and justices of the
peace. His career on the bench lasted 25 years, during which he conducted thousands of trials,
and mediated countless settlements in many complex and varied cases.
Fraser is an Olympian and a recognized international expert in sports law. As an athlete, he was
a sprinter, and he played university- and profession-level football. In athletics, he competed in
the men’s 200 metres at the 1976 Summer Olympics. At the 1975 Pan American Games, he won
a bronze medal in the 4×100-metre relay, and finished fifth in the 200-metre and sixth in the 100-
metre races.
As an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), he was appointed to CAS’s first
ad hoc court, and has served as either sole or panel arbitrator in dozens of sports-related and
other disputes. For example, from1988 to 1990, Fraser was a member of the Dubin Commission
of Inquiry into the use of anabolic steroids and other banned substances in sport, after
Ben Johnson’s positive drug test at the 1988 Olympics. Fraser made the ruling in the infamous
Ipperwash case that found a police officer guilty of killing Ojibwa protester Dudley George. And
he is a member of several panels in North America and Europe, and has conducted arbitrations in
the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Malaysia and Switzerland.
Fraser currently serves as an independent Arbitrator with the United States Olympics and
Paralympic Committee (USOPC), the USOPC Athletes’ Advisory Council, the United States
Anti-Doping Agency and is a Commissioner with Athletics Canada as well as one of 15
adjudicators on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Independent Resolution
Panel for Complex Cases. In December 2022, Fraser was appointed to be the new chair of
Hockey Canada’s board of directors.
Fraser is a recipient of the Canada 125 medal and Her Majesty the Queen’s Golden Jubilee
Medal. In December 2021, Her Excellency the Right Honorable Mary Simon, Governor General
of Canada, appointed Fraser to the Order of Canada because of “…his transformative
contributions to Canadian sport as an internationally recognized expert in sports law and as a
former Olympian.”
(Sources: Queen’s University Alumni magazine, Carleton Ravens website, Wikipedia)
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