News

After almost a decade in legal practice, Professor Naiomi Metallic is excited to kick off her first year of full-time instruction at the Schulich School of Law. Students taking Constitutional Law, Indigenous Governance, Aboriginal Peoples, and the Kawaskimhon Aboriginal Law Moot will benefit from the breadth of her experience working as legal counsel for Indigenous communities in the Maritimes and beyond as both as an advisor and a litigator.

After earning an LLB from our law school in 2005, Metallic graduated from the University of Ottawa’s civil law program the following year and then became the first Mi’gmaq person to clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada; she also holds an LLM from Osgoode. Prior to accepting a tenure-track position at the law school on July 1, 2016, she was a senior associate with Burchells LLP in Halifax, where she began practicing in 2008.

That same year, Metallic began guest lecturing at Schulich Law on subjects such as Cultural Competence, Aboriginal Peoples and the Law, and Evidence. She also taught the Aboriginal Peoples seminar course and coached the Kawaskimhon Moot.

Metallic hails from the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, which is located on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. In addition to her professorship, she has been awarded the inaugural Chancellor’s Chair in Aboriginal Law and Policy at Schulich Law, which is a five-year term. Recently, she spoke with us about her plans for teaching, research, and opportunities to collaborate.

Why motivated you to leave practice to teach?

After nearly 10 years of a rewarding practice in Aboriginal law, I decided to make the move to academia to continue my work for First Nations in a different way – through teaching, writing, and speaking about the issues facing Aboriginal peoples in Canada, and how the law can be a tool for reconciliation and improving the lives of Indigenous peoples.

What can you tell us about the new course you’ll be teaching, Issues in Indigenous Governance?

I’m excited about it! I’ll be teaching it with Professor Constance MacIntosh. It’s a seminar course, and at least half the classes are going to have Indigenous lawyers or academics as guest speakers, either in class or on Skype. We wanted to offer a course for students (like me) who will go on to work closely with First Nations communities and who need to know the law regarding day-to-day governance issues, the challenges, and the innovative ways the law can be leveraged to make a difference for communities.  

What else will be new?

I’ve organized Blanket Exercises for all 1Ls from Sept. 19 to 21 at the Studley Gym, which will be facilitated by the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre. It’s an experiential learning exercise teaching Canada’s history of colonialism toward Indigenous people. It can be a very powerful experience.

I wanted to add this to the 1L experience as a partial implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action 28, which calls upon Canadian law schools to teach on 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. I hope this is just the start. I’ve also now joined the Faculty Committee examining other ways Schulich Law can be implementing TRC Call to Action 28. 

What are some of your research plans?

To write about how Canadian laws and institutions can be reformed in order to give Indigenous people greater control over matters that affect them. I’m currently writing on what national legislation recognizing Indigenous self-government might look like. I’m also very interested in how core essential services programs like child welfare and social assistance on reserve can be reformed in order to improve the well-being of First Nations communities and families. 

I’m also excited about the opportunities for research and collaboration with people in other disciplines, such as the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Social Work, and Public Administration, for example, both within the Dal community and beyond. Finally, I’m also passionate about representation of Indigenous people and diversity within key societal institutions like law schools, the legal profession, and the judiciary.

Do you have any upcoming publications you can share?

I just finalized a paper on the law school’s Indigenous Blacks & Mi’qmaq Initiative for the Canadian Journal of Women in the Law, which will be published sometime this fall. It argues that this type of affirmative-action program is key in producing a critical mass of racialized and Indigenous students and fostering diversity not only in law schools but also in the legal profession and judiciary.

I think programs like the IB&M Initiative should be implemented in every Canadian law school if those schools are truly committed to diversity and social change. As well, earlier this summer I published an article in the UNB Law Journal on how the bylaw powers in the Indian Act can be harnessed by First Nations in order to further self-governance.

What does the Chancellor’s Chair appointment entail?

The chair was created through the generous support of The Honourable A. Anne McLellan [who chairs the Dalhousie Advisory Council and was appointed Chancellor of Dalhousie in May 2015]. It’s intended to foster greater teaching and research on Aboriginal law and policy issues at the law school, as well promote interdisciplinary partnerships. I have a great deal of room to do lots of wonderful things, and I’m truly excited and grateful for this opportunity. I’m also looking to hire student researchers to help with me with this work.

What else is happening this fall?

I’ll be speaking about the pros and cons of the national legislation on self-governance at the Indigenous Bar Association conference in Vancouver in mid-October. The week after that, I’ll be presenting on child welfare on First Nations reserves at a symposium at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.

There was a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision this past January that found the child-welfare program on reserve is extremely underfunded by Canada and causing significant harms to First Nations children and families. I’ll be discussing the history of the current system, how it works, and necessary reforms. I’ll also be speaking at UNB’s Treaty Days Symposium on the role of legal education in advancing reconciliation and delivering promise of mutual respect and recognition affirmed by the Mi’gmaq Peace and Friendship Treaties.

We hear you have a blog in the works. When will you start posting?

Soon! As someone who writes for Indigenous communities and their advocates, something that preoccupies me is ensuring that my research is read and understood by the intended audience. So I want to make my research and writing accessible. Having a blog is one way to do this. My blog will be called Ideas in Aboriginal Law and Policy and located on Dal’s blog platform. I’m hoping it will be live later this fall.

How do you feel that your experience as a law student here will inform your teaching?

One of my favourite experiences in law school was organizing a national conference on the Future of the Mi’kmaq through DALSA [the Dalhousie Aboriginal Law Students’ Association] in my third year. We had support from the Dean, the Dal’s Law Students’ Society, the Social Activist Law Student Association, and others in making this conference happen. We also held a Student Day in conjunction with the conference and brought Mi’kmaq high school students from around the Maritimes to Dalhousie to entice them to consider law.

This experience showed me what I could do when you work together – you realize how you can effect change. I’d like to help organize a conference in 2018, for Dal’s 200th anniversary, with the involvement of DALSA. There are opportunities to do some really fun stuff, and I want to ensure that the students get the most out of their experience here.