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Episode 89 (En anglais): Engaging with Indigenous Legal Orders in Theory and Practice

– Juil 2024

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Episode 89 (En anglais): Engaging with Indigenous Legal Orders in Theory and Practice
Broadcast Date: July 25, 2024

Summary

In this episode, Nathan Afilalo, CIAJ’s former Legal Affairs Manager at the time, welcomes two guests to discuss engaging with Indigenous legal orders in Canada from two perspectives: the academic side with Associate Professor Hadley Friedland and the institutional side with Crown Counsel Sarah Arngna’naaq. These two guests present their work and active projects.

Guests

Sarah Arngna’naaq is originally from Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), Nunavut, however she has spent the majority of her life in Somba K’e, Denendeh (Yellowknife). She works as Crown counsel for the Nunavut Regional Office of Public Prosecution Service of Canada. While she was a regular circuit Crown for several years, she is now assigned as the lead on a special project within the office. The assignment is to create a program for the office that allows for ongoing community consultation on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit societal values, or a framework by which Inuit may live a good life), which can then form part of how Crowns consider their cases. She attended Trent University, receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 2009 and the University of Victoria, earning her JD in 2012. 

Hadley Friedland is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law. Her research focuses on Indigenous law, Aboriginal law, Family law and Child Welfare law, Criminal Justice, Therapeutic jurisprudence and Community-led research.

Dr. Friedland holds a Child and Youth Care diploma from MacEwan University, an LLB from the University of Victoria, and an LLM and PhD from the University of Alberta. She received a Governor General gold medal for her doctoral dissertation and was the inaugural SSHRC Impact Talent Award recipient. She currently holds a Killam Accelerator Research Award. Dr. Friedland helped establish the Indigenous Law Research Unit [ILRU] at the University of Victoria and was its first Research Director. She has had the honour of working with Indigenous communities across Canada to identify and articulate their own laws. She has published numerous academic articles as well as collaboratively produced accessible Indigenous legal resources. Since 2019, Dr. Friedland has worked extensively on public and continuing legal education related to Bill C92, the Canadian federal Indigenous child welfare act. She is author of the book, The Wetiko (Windigo) Legal Principles: Cree and Anishinabek Responses to Violence and Victimization, University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Dr. Friedland is Academic Director, Principal Investigator and Co-founder of the Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge, a dedicated research initiative developed to uphold Indigenous law through supporting community-led research. 

Host

Nathan is a graduate of McGill’s BCL/LLB program and was CIAJ’s first articling student. Trained in both Civil and Common Law, he has been called to the Ontario Bar in 2020. He has clerked at the Montreal Municipal Court, as well as involved himself in Montreal-based access to justice organizations such as The Mile End Legal Clinic and the Centre for Research-Action and Race Relations. Nathan was a lawyer at CIAJ from 2018 to 2024, where he conducted legal research on our national discussions on key issues, wrote reports and helped develop CIAJ initiatives. He is now a lawyer for the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) / Cree Nation Government.

Related Documentation

In All Fairness is a Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice podcast channel welcoming representatives from the legal community and exploring how we can all contribute to improving the administration of justice in Canada. Legal professionals will benefit from informed discussions on key issues, essential knowledge and insights to strengthen their practice.

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