Robin Fraser was born September 23, 1929 in Calgary. As an only child Robin lived in Minnedosa, Manitoba and Trenton, Oakville and Toronto, Ontario. He attended Trinity College at the University of Toronto, obtaining an honors B.A. in Political Science and Economics, and then attended Osgoode Hall Law School, becoming a lawyer in 1956. Robin articled with a small Toronto law firm and then joined the downtown law firm of Fraser Beatty Tucker McIntosh and Stewart now Dentons, and specialized in real estate law and not for profit corporations until his retirement in 1995. He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1983. In September 2000 Robin received from Trinity College a Doctorate of Sacred Letters honoris causa.

Robin has been an enthusiastic wilderness canoeist and he and his first wife, Victoria, who died in 1998, paddled many thousands of miles in different areas of northern Canada and the west coast over a number of years. He has been involved in different organizations devoted to the preservation of the environment including the Nature Conservancy of Canada (board member and chair), the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (board member and chair), Algonquin Wildlands League (board member) and Bird Studies Canada (board member). He is a life member of the Corporation of Trinity College, served on the board and was chair of the Huntington Society of Canada and was a long-standing member of the board of The Frederick Harris Music Co. Ltd., a not for profit corporation owned in trust by the Royal Conservatory of Music, which he helped separate from the University of Toronto.

He is married to Mary Ellen Hebb, an enthusiastic birder, and has two daughters and a son, three grandchildren and two step children.