Alberta Chief Justice Ritu Khullar dies following cancer battle

Ritu Khullar speaks at her swearing in as Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of Appeal Feb. 23, 2023. Khullar died Thursday after a battle with cancer. She was 62. PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM /David Bloom/Postmedia Alberta’s Chief Justice has died after a battle with cancer. The Alberta Court of Appeal announced Friday that Ritu Khullar died Sept. 3, “surrounded by family members whom she loved deeply and who loved her.” She was 62. Khullar had been on medical leave since January following surgery over the 2025 holiday season. Dawn Pentelechuk has been serving as acting chief justice in her absence. “The Honourable Ritu Khullar was a respected jurist whose intellect, thoughtfulness, and compassion were reflected in her work,” the court said. “She never lost sight of the impact her decisions had on the lives of the parties before her. She understood that justice is the application of law to life.” Kara O’Halloran, who worked with Khullar for years at the Edmonton firm Chivers Carpenter, said Khullar was a mentor who always cared about her clients and the people she worked with. “There’s a reason she was elevated to the position she was in, because she was up for that task,” she said. “It’s a shame that we can’t see all that she would have done because it would have been remarkable, I have no doubt.” From small town Alberta Khullar was sworn in as Chief Justice in February 2023, taking over from Catherine Fraser, who held the role since 1992. When Khullar was appointed, Mary Moreau, then the top judge of the Court of King’s Bench, described her as “principled, meticulously prepared … and dedicated to modernizing” the courts. Khullar always tried to use law to make society “a more compassionate place to live,” Moreau said. Born in the tiny northern town of Fort Vermilion, Khullar was the first woman of South Asian descent to serve as a provincial chief justice in Canada — though she sometimes chafed when that part of her identity came up. “I’ve never seen myself as a role model. I think that’s weird,” Khullar laughed when then-Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons asked about her heritage in a 2018 interview. “I’m proud of my heritage. My parents came from India. But that’s not what defines me. I never refer to myself as South Asian. I describe myself as Canadian. My parents raised us as Canadians. Full stop.” Khullar’s parents were both teachers who came to Canada from Punjab. Their families — her mother Sikh, her father Hindu — didn’t approve of…