1st woman appointed chief justice of Alberta Court of Queen's Bench

For the first time a female judge has been appointed chief justice of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench.

MaryMoreauwill take on the role after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced her appointment Tuesday.

"I've certainly received a whole pile of emailsthroughout the day, so it's been a pretty exciting day," said Moreau, speaking to Radio Active from Grande Prairie where she was performing a bilingual bar admissions ceremony.

Moreau said hernew role will be quite a change from the past 22 years spent in the courtroom working on criminal, civil and family law cases.

In her new administrative role, Moreau's focus will be onassigning judges their cases, dealing with issues of judicial resources and dealing with both federal and provincial governments.

"Itwill be a very exciting time and challenging for me," she said.

Since joiningthe bench in 1994, Moreau has beeninvolved in education, administration and strategic planningfor Canada's court system, the Prime Minister's Office said in a news release.

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Moreau haspresided over French and bilingual trials in Alberta, andlitigated numerous landmark cases involving minority language rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

She is a co-founder of the Association des juristes d'expression franaise de l'Alberta.

Since 2014, Moreau has been a member of the advisory committee on judicial ethics, which provides confidential advisory opinions on ethical issues to federally appointed judges across Canada.

Before becoming a judge, Moreau practised criminal law, constitutional law and civil litigation in Edmonton.

The province'shighest ranking judge is Catherine Fraser, who in 1992 becamethe first woman to be appointed Chief Justice of Alberta at the superior Court of Appeal of Alberta.