MRU faculty of business hosts Treaty Law School

A recent four-day Treaty Law School held at Mount Royal University brought together treaty law advocates with a national focus on the history of treaties and treaty-making with the Crown, addressing critical gaps.

The Treaty Law School provided a forum for treaty talks based on sovereignty. It also initiated research and preservation for Treaty Leadership and governance archives.

“Our history of governance must have a place in our education today. In a Treaty Law School, we are creating space for our inherent governance frameworks as our Ancestors stipulated,” said Dr. Evelyn Poitras, PhD, Ptarmigan Chair of Indigenous Business and Economic Development at MRU and director of the Treaty Law School.

“In a school of Indian Treaty Law thought, the focus is on governance frameworks as our Ancestors stipulated before and at the time of Treaty. Today, we seek this alignment with our inherent principles of nationhood and sovereignty.”

The school began with a pipe ceremony at a tipi erected on the East Gate lawn and continued in Ross Glen Hall with a grand opening ceremony.

Samuel Crowfoot, a Siksika councillor and Mount Royal alumnus who has pursued a career in the U.S. prosecuting major crimes and who chairs Siksika’s legal task force, delivered a powerful opening address where he emphasized that treaty obligations involve more than what was written down on paper and urged more young Indigenous people to pursue a legal education.

“We need more Indigenous lawyers. Courtrooms are the modern-day battlefield and as important as it is to speak our language we need to speak the legalese.”

Other speakers included Ron Lameman of the International Treaty Council; Dr. Jerry Fontaine, PhD, author of Our Hearts are as One Fire, an Ojibway-Anishinabe Vision for the Future; and Dr. Sheldon Krasowski, PhD, of the Office of the Treaty Commissioner in Saskatchewan and author of No Surrender, The Land Remains Indigenous.

Topics included a wide range of laws related to treaties governance, leadership and governance, pre-Confederation treaties, sovereignty and much more. Attendees included: Treaty People; Treaty partners and allies; Treaty leadership (elected, hereditary, community); Treaty advocates; lawyers; students and academics.

The school built on previous Treaty Law Schools in Saskatchewan held in 2015 and 2018. Then, the late Elder Noel Starblanket, a former president of the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations), and the late Elder Vern Bellegarde, who was a respected leader from Little Black Bear First Nation, spoke on their experiences and ancestral teachings. They offered an Indigenous understanding of the treaties as sacred, nation-to-nation agreements intended for perpetual partnership and mutual coexistence, and sharing of the land ‘to the depth of a plow’ as they had no concept of ‘land surrender’.

Poitras said one of the goals was addressing the barriers that form between two legal systems: Canadian law that originated with British Crown law on the one hand and Indigenous law with a focus on Treaty law on the other. Those were intertwined in the treaty process and the written treaties themselves and continue to present challenges in opposition to ‘spirit and intent’ understanding.

“We are honoured to be hosting the Treaty Law School at Mount Royal University said Dr. Kelly Williams-Witt, PhD, dean of Business, Communication and Aviation.

“Dr. Poitras has gathered together important voices from across Canada for this event. The discussions and presentations at the Treaty Law School will become part of the archive that Dr. Poitras is creating to document and preserve the history and future of Indigenous governance in Canada. Her work will make a significant contribution allowing dissemination of this knowledge to communities across the country.”