John Mark Keyes is a sessional professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, teaching mainly in the field of public law and legislation. He is also an instructor with Athabasca University in its Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Legislative Drafting Program. He has published over 35 academic legal articles and two monographs, Executive Legislation, now in its third edition (Lexis Nexis, 2021) and Drafting, Interpreting and Applying Legislation (Irwin Law, 2023). He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, articled with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1981. He obtained a Diploma in Legislative Drafting in 1983 from the University of Ottawa and an LL.M from the same University in 1985.
Professor Keyes has chaired the organizing committee for the biennial legislative drafting conferences of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) as well as a working group revising the Legislative Drafting Conventions of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada. He has also been the treasurer of the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel (CALC) and the editor of its journal, the Loophole.
Professor Keyes previously worked in the Department of Justice (Canada), first in the Privy Council Office Section examining draft regulations, then in the Legislation Section drafting government bills. From 1999, he worked in various managerial positions in the Legislative Services Branch and was the Chief Legislative Counsel (Assistant Deputy Minister Responsible for Legislative Services) from 2005 until 2013. He was also the departmental champion for Sustainable Development, the co-champion for Official Languages and the co-chair of the Justice Workplace Charitable Campaign.
Professor Keyes’s awards include the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for service in Government and to the community (2002), the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for significant contributions and achievements by Canadians (2013), the Laurier Marcil Lavallée (Francophile de l’année) of the Association des communautés francophones d’Ottawa (2016); the President’s Award of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice for volunteer service (2016); the Ottawa Little Theatre Cornerstone Award for extraordinary volunteer contribution (2017) and the Canadian Bar Association John Tait Award of Excellence recognizing Public Sector Lawyers in Canada (2020).