Daniels v. Canada Virtual launch

Please join us and the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research for the launch of Daniels v. Canada: In and Beyond the Courts!

Editors Dr. Kermoal and Dr. Andersen will be joined by contributors Dr. Brenda Gunn, Dr. Brenda Macdougall, and Dr. Darryl Leroux.

A Q&A will follow the presentation.

Register in advance here, and send questions or comments to Nicole.Haldoupis@umanitoba.ca.

About the book

In Daniels v. Canada, the Supreme Court determined that Métis and non-status Indians were “Indians” under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, one of a number of court victories that has powerfully shaped Métis relationships with the federal government.

However, the decision (and the case) continues to reverberate far beyond its immediate policy implications. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide array of professional contexts, this volume demonstrates the power of Supreme Court of Canada cases to directly and indirectly shape our conversations about and conceptions of what Indigeneity is, what its boundaries are, and what Canadians believe Indigenous peoples are “owed.”

Attention to Daniels v. Canada’s variegated impacts also demonstrates the extent to which the power of the courts extend and refract far deeper and into a much wider array of social arenas than we often give them credit for. This volume demonstrates the importance of understanding “law” beyond its jurisprudential manifestations, but it also points to the central importance of respecting the power of court cases in how law is carried out in a liberal nation-state such as Canada.

About the presenters

Nathalie Kermoal is a Breton (a people whose territory is situated on the west coast of France). She holds a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa and is full professor in the faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. Kermoal has published three books and numerous articles in academic journals and collected volumes. Her areas of research are Métis issues, Aboriginal constitutional issues, urban Indigenous history, and Indigenous women’s issues. In 2011–12, she served as Interim Dean of the faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, and in 2013–14, she was special advisor on Aboriginal academic programs with the Provost’s office. Since 2009, Kermoal has been associate dean academic of the faculty of Native Studies, and as of January 2016, she has also been Director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research at the Faculty of Native Studies.

Chris Andersen is Métis, originally from the Parkland region of Saskatchewan. He received his PhD in 2005 from the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta and became a faculty member of that university’s faculty of Native Studies in 2000. In 2014, he was appointed full professor. He is the former director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research and is currently dean of the faculty. Andersen is the author of "Métis”: Race, Recognition and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood (UBC Press, 2014). In 2015, “Métis” was awarded the 2014 Prize for Best Subsequent Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and in 2016, it was shortlisted for the 2015 Canada Prize. Andersen is a founding member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Executive Council and editor of the journal aboriginal policy studies. In 2014, he was named a member of the inaugural class of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

Brenda Macdougall is the university research chair in Metis Family and Community Traditions at the University of Ottawa and director of the Institute for Indigenous Research and Studies. She has been researching Metis community histories for many years and is the author of One of the Family: Metis Culture in Nineteenth Century Northwestern Saskatchewan (2010) and author of numerous articles including “Speaking of Metis: Reading Family Life into Colonial Records” (2014).

Brenda L. Gunn, is a professor at the University of Manitoba, faculty of Law. She has a B.A. from the University of Manitoba and a J.D. from the University of Toronto. She completed her LL.M. in Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy at the University of Arizona. She articled with Sierra Legal Defence Fund (now Ecojustice Canada). She was called to the bars of Law Society of Upper Canada and Manitoba. Brenda also worked at a community legal clinic in Rabinal, Guatemala, on a case of genocide submitted to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. As a proud Métis woman, she continues to combine her academic research with her activism pushing for greater recognition of Indigenous peoples’ inherent rights as determined by Indigenous peoples’ own legal traditions. Her current research focuses on promoting greater conformity between international law on the rights of Indigenous peoples and domestic law.

Darryl Leroux is associate professor in the department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), in unceded Mi’kmaw territory. He is a white settler whose Norman, Poitevin, Breton, and Parisian ancestors were among the first Europeans to colonize the St. Lawrence River Valley. His interest in exposing current efforts by French descendants to claim Indigenous identities comes from his engagement with anti-colonial thinkers and activists. His book Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity was published by UMP in 2019.

• Monday, May 17, 2021 – Monday, May 17, 2021
• 2:00pm – 3:00pm
• University of Manitoba Press, 301 St. John’s College 92 Dysart Road University of Manitoba, R3T 2M5
• Winnipeg, Manitoba