Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
Continuing on with our assessment of TRC Calls to Action regarding Justice, today’s post will focus on Calls to Action #27 & 28. These two calls demand changes to Canada’s legal system that focus on education for law students and practicing lawyers. Please refer to our October 14th post where Call to Action #27 was discussed in detail as part of the IBA Conference coverage on Ethics and Professionalism that team ReconciliAction attended.
- ” We call upon the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to ensure that lawyers receive appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal– Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.”[1]
Please find the link to the post here:
TRC Call to Action #28
- We call upon law schools in Canada to require all law students to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and antiracism.
Making TRC Call to Action #28 a strategic goal for law schools to implement could help to improve the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples and create a deeper understanding of the legal and cultural challenges that Indigenous peoples have faced both historically and presently. It is no surprise that calls to Indigenize legal education are mounting in Canada. Many law schools offer Indigenous law classes as options and some have made them mandatory, claiming to have made it a priority to address the needs of Indigenous students to ensure that all students have access to knowledge of Indigenous legal issues.
First and foremost, ReconciliAction would like to give a huge shout out Lakehead University’s Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, which was one of the first law schools in Canada to include stand alone mandatory courses on Indigenous legal issues in its curriculum. Lakehead strongly emphasized that Aboriginal law is at the cornerstone of its curriculum, and that it is vital for their students to be made aware of not only the law generally, but how that law impacts on Aboriginal peoples.[2]
Other faculties of law have taken initiative to implement Call to Action #28. For example, UBC's Allard School of Law boasts one of the highest enrolments of Indigenous law students in Canada, and began its Indigenous legal studies program in 1975. Today, its syllabus includes a broad range of courses covering Aboriginal law and treaty rights, and so on. In response to the TRC Calls to Action, UBC has created a cultural competency certificate to help students connect with the Indigenous community and reflect on the impact of Canada’s colonial legal system. [3] In 2018, the University of Windsor finally made it a requirement for first-year law students to take a course in Indigenous legal traditions that examined Indigenous legal orders, in particular Anishinaabe, Cree and Haudenosaunee laws. The course had been offered for the past four years prior but was not mandatory until 2018. [4]
The University of Victoria (UVIC) Faculty of Law created a joint degree program in Canadian Common Law (JD) and Indigenous Legal Orders (JID) in September 2018, the first of its kind in the world. The program combines intensive study of Canadian Common Law with intensive engagement with Indigenous laws. Students graduate in four years with two professional degrees: A Juris Doctor (JD) and a Juris Indigenarum Doctor (JID). [5]
While these schools and a few others not mentioned are doing their part to address the TRC Call to Action #28, to date there are Canadian Universities that do not have a requirement of mandatory classes in Aboriginal Law including the University of Alberta which we hope to see a change in very soon. While making classes mandatory are not a solution to systemic racism and discrimination in the legal field, it most definitely represents a big step forward in reconciliation. It is clearly a work in progress and more attention to implement mandatory Aboriginal Law classes among all law schools across Canada must remain the focus in moving forward toward that goal. Teaching history from one perspective has been the norm for far too long at post-secondary institutions and change in legal education is long overdue. After all, it is law students who will one day become lawyers and judges deciding the fate of Indigenous legal issues.
Until next time
ReconciliAction YEG
[1] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) at 168.
[2] Lakehead University Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, "Aboriginal Law" (2020), online: <https://www.lakeheadu.ca/programs/departments/law/curriculum/aboriginal-law>
[3] Kerry Banks, "The Rise of Aboriginal Law" University Affairs (05 September 2018) online: < https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/the-rise-of-aboriginal-law>.
[4] Mary Caton, "Law Students Now Required to Study Indigenous Legal Traditions" The Windsor Star (24 August 2018), online: <https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/law-students-will-be-required-to-take-course-on-indigenous-legal-traditions/>.
[5]University of Victoria Faculty of Law, "Joint Degree Program in Canadian Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders" (2020) online: < https://www.uvic.ca/law/about/indigenous/jid/index.php>.
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