With a little regret and unlimited appreciation, we must respectfully announce the retirement of the Canadian Snowbird Association’s General Legal Counsel, Wallace Weylie. Wally was born in Mount Hope, Ontario. He joined the Canadian armed forces and became an air force pilot while studying at the University of Western Ontario. He started his post-secondary education in the pre-med program and completed two years of medical training before changing his career path to study law instead. Wally earned his law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. After practising law successfully in Ontario for several years, Wally went back to school and earned a law degree in the United States at the University of Detroit. He was called to the bar of Florida in 1990. Wally moved to Florida from Toronto with his wife and their two children. He advertised his services as a Canadian/U.S.-licensed attorney in a popular central Florida snowbird publication entitled Canada News. When the first organizational meeting of what would later become the Canadian Snowbird Association was held in the Youkey Theater at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, Florida, Wally was invited to attend and subsequently guided the original steering committee of the organization through the steps to become a bona fide association. Wally incorporated the not-for-profit corporation both in the state of Florida and with the Canadian Corporations Act; he also wrote the bylaws that govern the association’s activities to this day. Wally has attended virtually every board meeting since the association’s inception and his consistent guidance has kept the organization on the straight and narrow through the years. Two of his more notable accomplishments with the CSA are the court actions which he spearheaded against the government of Ontario, defending the principles of the Canada Health Act and enforcing continued payments for out-of-country medical expenses. Had these cases not been tried and eventually won in Ontario, it is almost certain that payments for out-of-country medical services would have fallen like dominos in each province and territory throughout Canada. Wally was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. He has four children and was honoured by them when they co-ordinated the publishing of a book about his life entitled Forks in the Road. Wally’s guidance and companionship will be truly missed. But the stability created by his fundamental principles will serve the association well for years to come. Tribute to Wallace Weylie Wallace Weylie at the first Canadian meeting with the CSA Steering Committee in 1992 (L-R): Evelyn Goodings, Wallace Weylie, Don Slinger, Jack Parry, Art Jackson and Frank Oliver CSANews | SPRING 2026 | 45 Tribute
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