On a bleak Friday in February 1996, Ontario Superior Court Justice Gloria Epstein released a family court decision before immediately boarding a plane to visit her son in Moncton, N.B.

The case’s mundane subject matter — spousal support — belied its significance, which would have been apparent when the file landed on Epstein’s desk three years prior, just weeks after she became a judge.

M v. H, as the landmark case came to be known, involved the breakup of a long-term relationship between two women. The couple, each known in court only by an initial, had together acquired property and run a business before their acrimonious split, and M sued H for spousal support.

But at the time, Ontario’s Family Law Act defined a common-law relationship as one between a heterosexual couple, meaning M and H had no status before the court. Epstein ruled that unconstitutional, because it discriminated against homosexual couples, and rewrote the legislation.

Although she knew her decision bore societal significance, she awoke the next day to an unexpectedly outsized — and angry — reaction.

“I had no idea that the decision would make the front page of every major newspaper,” Epstein told the Law Society of Upper Canada in a 1999 speech. “I was totally unprepared for the very negative reaction of many of my fellow Canadians, including my friends, colleagues and, yes, even some members of my family.”

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At an event soon after, she was “accosted by people anxious to let me know that they found homosexuality quite abhorrent.”

A controversial decision according to some, yes — but the right one, the Ontario Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada went on to conclude, the latter in an 8-1 decision.

The upper courts’ rulings were validating to Epstein — “a decision I firmly believed was the right one had passed the supreme test,” she told the law society. But so, too, has been the progression of Canadian society in the years since M v. H, with the rights of people within the LGBTQ2S community now far more broadly accepted, she said.

“Am I saying that there are no bigots left in Canada on that issue? Of course we’ve still got a lot of issues,” Epstein told the Star in an interview last week. “And the review is part of that journey.”

That review — an independent examination of how the Toronto Police Service investigates missing persons cases — is the reason her vast third-floor office in Ontario’s highest court was half-empty on the day of the interview. Photos of Epstein’s family — she has two sons and a daughter — her King-area farm, and an action shot of former Blue Jay Josh Donaldson at bat still adorned the wall, but would be taken down as she retired from the Court of Appeal over the weekend.

Her new office sits just a few blocks north, but the move represents a larger departure. After 25 years as a judge, she is hanging up her robes to take on the high-profile review, commissioned following the arrest of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur.

“I can make no stronger statement of my commitment to this review than by indicating that I chose to retire from the Court of Appeal to enable me to devote my time and my energy to this critical work,” Epstein told the Toronto Police Services Board at its August meeting.

Speaking to the Star days later, she called the review “a good match for my life trajectory, my values, and what I wanted to do at this stage in my career.”

The review was approved by the civilian board earlier this year, as questions mounted over the police handling of the disappearances of men now alleged to be McArthur’s victims. The 66-year-old landscaper is currently facing eight counts of first-degree murder.

Most of the alleged victims — many of whom had ties to Toronto’s Gay Village and were from South Asian or Middle Eastern communities — were reported missing to police. The disappearances of three of the men were the subject of a special police missing persons project, which ran from 2012 to 2014 but ended with no arrests. Police have since been accused of downplaying concerns within the Gay Village about a killer preying on the community.

Criticisms have also followed other recent disappearances. Alloura Wells, a 27-year-old transgender woman, was reported missing to Toronto police but her family alleges they were told the case was not a high priority because she had been homeless (a police spokesperson said that was “not the proper response from any part of this organization”). She was later confirmed dead.

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Tess Richey, 22, was reported missing in November 2017, but her body was later found by her mother, who had launched her own search for her daughter. Kalen Schlatter is charged with first-degree murder in her death, while two Toronto police officers are facing disciplinary charges for allegedly failing to properly investigate Richey’s disappearance.

Epstein was frank in her acknowledgment that the independent review was born out of “the tragic deaths of members of our community and, more specifically, by deep concerns expressed about how the Toronto Police Service conducted the investigations into their disappearances.” It will examine an array of policies and practices surrounding missing persons probes, including whether some could have been “tainted by systemic bias or discrimination,” Epstein said.

The police service, meanwhile, is conducting its own internal review of how it handles missing persons cases, and creating a dedicated missing persons unit.

In a statement, Toronto police board chair Andy Pringle called the review “a necessary and vital step to identify systemic issues and improve trust with Toronto’s vulnerable communities.”

“Justice Epstein will bring legal rigour and reputational excellence to this important process,” he said.

Beyond providing a timeline — the report will be completed by April 2020 — Epstein said it would be premature to comment on her approach to the review, emphasizing the role that consultations with individuals and the public will have in shaping it.

Her winding career path, she said, has always had people at its core: those she met in her early 20s, while running a fishing camp alone in northern Ontario’s Temagami area; those she served as a cocktail waitress and “coat check girl” while attending law school at the University of Toronto; and the clients she encountered after opening, in the mid-1980s, one of Toronto’s first female-owned litigation boutiques, Gloria Epstein & Associates.

In 1993, Epstein was tapped to be a Superior Court judge, a job she called a “gift.” With detail and evident fondness, she relays specific instances when she felt lucky to be in the courtroom, including a case where a homeless man called to testify took extraordinary care to dress up, including fashioning a homemade wig, apparently believing he had to cover his head.

“How honoured I was at the effort he put into it. This guy had really gone out of his way to show that he respected the court. How lucky am I to have met these people?” she said.

When she was appointed to the Court of Appeal after 15 years as a trial judge, she realized the people she hoped to help would no longer be in her courtroom but rather represented in the court documents landing on her desk. She urged her law clerks never to lose sight of that.

“It’s not about where the comma is and how to interpret the word,” she said of appeals. “It’s about the people, and their lives, and they are relying on us to help them with their problems.”

The independent review brings another opportunity for such work, she said — “I’ll be engaged with people, trying to get it right for them in the right way, to the extent that that’s possible. So there is a flow to this that I find logical.”

On one of her final days walking the crimson-carpeted halls of the Court of Appeal, she was wrapping up her last case before double-checking the wording of the independent review website, set to launch in the coming days. Casting an eye to her open-toed sandals, she joked that she should have worn runners at the eager pace she’s going.

“I’m looking forward to meeting the people, listening to them, and learning, and then trying to help.”

With files from the Star archives and library