Daniel Boivin

About Daniel Boivin

Health law and medical defence sit at the heart of Daniel Boivin's work. Daniel is a partner in the Advocacy Group at Gowling WLG's Ottawa office and acts as counsel to the Canadian Medical Protective Association and to physicians, with medical assistance in dying a particular area of focus. The practice also takes in commercial litigation and constitutional questions about language rights, and clients can work with Daniel in either English or French.

Daniel studied biology first, finishing a BSc in 1988, then earned an LLB at the University of Ottawa in 1991 and was called to the Ontario bar in 1993. Over the years since, Daniel's cases have gone before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Teaching runs alongside the practice. Daniel is a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, the school Daniel graduated from, covering evidence and trial advocacy, and gives talks on evidence, advocacy skills and health law to a range of groups. Access to justice in French has been a cause from the very beginning of Daniel's career. Daniel has led AJEFO, the Canadian Bar Association's Conférence des juristes d'expression française and FAJEF, the national federation of French-speaking common law jurists. In October 2021, speaking as FAJEF's president, Daniel welcomed the Commissioner of Official Languages' recommendation that the Supreme Court of Canada translate its decisions, calling the court an ally of the francophone community. Daniel also co-chaired AJEFO's 46th congress, held in Burlington in June 2026.

Outside the office, Daniel lives in the Outaouais and has close to 25 years in competitive alpine skiing. Before that, Daniel competed at an elite level in a sport far removed from snow, and coaches had once ruled out alpine skiing, judging Daniel too much of a daredevil. Today Daniel is a level 4 official who often directs races at Mont Sainte-Marie and has served as a technical delegate at many clubs across Quebec. Daniel has been president of the Mont Sainte-Marie club and of the Outaouais ski zone, joined the Ski Québec Alpin board in 2018 and now chairs it. Culture gets time too: Daniel served as vice-president of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, sat on the board of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa and played a key part in launching Ottawa's francophone community radio station.