Dugald Christie died after he was hit by a van in Ontario during a cross-Canada cycling tour to bring attention to the cause he was planning to present to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Const. Jim Davis of the Ontario provincial police in Blind River, Ont., said Christie, 65, was struck by a vehicle Monday evening on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Christie was a well-known lawyer and activist for equal access to legal assistance. His efforts led to the opening of 60 clinics in British Columbia - and several in other western provinces - that offer free legal advice to people who couldn't otherwise afford a lawyer. Last December, Christie won a legal fight when British Columbia's Court of Appeal ruled the seven-per-cent provincial tax on lawyers' fees was unconstitutional. The battle against the tax originally involved only low-income people, but the high court went further, ruling the tax interfered with all people's access to justice. B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Brenner said Tuesday he met Christie several years ago and was impressed by the man's passion for his cause. "He always had a twinkle in his eye," Brenner said. "He had a mission and he was determined to get to where he wanted to get to and he wasn't good at taking No for an answer and he wasn't good at, I guess, letting obstacles get in his way." Brenner said B.C. lawyers are offering a lot of free - or pro bono - services to people but that the province's bar association could do more to bring public attention to the issue, perhaps through workshops and forums. "I support the concept of pro bono entirely and support and encourage the bar in its pro bono activities and what I saw in Dugald Christie was someone who was very focused and who wanted to bring that about and so I supported him." Attorney General Wally Oppal said Christie started out in one of the biggest law firms in Vancouver about 35 years ago before making his advocacy work the focus of his life. "He mentioned frequently that cases took forever before they got to trial and that's really a valid concern that he had," Oppal said. "And he was always concerned about people who were not necessarily poor but people who still could not afford to hire lawyers. "In a sense he was the conscience of the legal profession and he reminded the legal profession that they had a higher duty to care for those who were not able to finance their own lawsuits and that in a democracy, lawyers in a free society have an obligation to ensure that everybody gets access to the courts and everybody gets justice." While the government is providing self-help centres for the public to access information for their legal cases, Christie's mission "helped a lot in giving us all a wake-up call as to what needs to be done," Oppal said. Bruce Fraser, chairman of the board for the Western Society to Access Justice, founded by Christie about 10 years ago, said the lawyer didn't own a car or take any stimulants, including tea or coffee. "Instead of coffee he used to order hot water with a bit of cream and sugar," Fraser said of the good-humoured and well-read advocate who made a great dinner companion. Christie, a devout Anglican, was known to grind away at work 12 hours a day. Volunteers working at the society were devastated by news of Christie's death but were busy Tuesday scheduling appointments for people who needed to access lawyers for free, Fraser said. "He was the spirit and the driving force behind the movement," Fraser said, adding the society is funded by lawyers whose services and funds Christie solicited day after day. "He phoned at least 10 lawyers a day five days a week and he did that throughout the life of the society." Christie wanted all Canadians to have access to lawyers and decided to present a petition at a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association meeting in St. John's, N-L, later this month before meeting with the prime minister, Fraser said.