 Hello, everyone. Let's talk about social inclusion again. Canada, 1850. An indigenous community, the Anishinaabe nation, signed the Robertson treaties. We'll get there very soon. Promising annual annuity that have not been increased in the past 150 years. And today, with my guest, Daniel Brown, we've brought together a recent Ontario decision brought by the Anishinaabe Treaty beneficiaries who seek to affirm these treaty rights. And so we discussed today how this decision could lead to the implementation of reconciliation through indigenous law, and also an opportunity to develop in Canada, in which indigenous peoples are true partners in development and management of natural resources. We'll jump into it in a minute. Tenille, welcome to our episode. Hi, thanks for having me. The study overall argues that a specific court case rest to versus Canada decision, you will tell us more about this soon. It tells us that this court case is important because it has the potential to change the way that Canada responds to and respect its treaty obligations. And it demonstrates a growing movement to revitalize indigenous law and it's indigenous legal systems. Is this correct? Is this the main core importance of your research? That's correct. So we're talking about a decision that was heard a couple of years ago in Ontario, still against Canada. And then it's been heard in appeal and then it's been heard, it will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada in November. So it's an ongoing conversation. But it concerns the treaty. And so the treaty, the two treaties are the Robinson treaties, as you said. And they're concluded 100 plus years ago. And it's the terms of the treaty remain unfulfilled. And the particular piece that this case looks at is the annuity clause. So in treaties concluded in the 19th century in Canada, we have some historical numbered treaties. We have the Robinson treaties. There would be an annual annuity payment that would be given to indigenous beneficiaries in return for relations, ongoing relations, these kinds of things, recognition of the relationships. The annuity amount in the Robinson treaties is unclear. And that's the issue in the case. It indicates a certain amount of a couple of dollars, but it also indicates that the amount will increase, dependent upon the resource revenues that the government receives. And that's a unique clause. And in the context, the potential for that is has the potential to alter relationships between the Canadian state and indigenous communities. It is an annuity clause that indicates engagement with government activities around resource extraction. So this case is important for the beneficiaries of the treaties. And for me, I'm in on the treaty lands here of the Robinson Superior Treaty. And it's important for Canadian approaches to interpreting treaties across Canada. So what was the specific research gap that made you do this? Was more research on indigenous law and its potential applications in a variety of contexts? What was the research gap here? So I was just saying that I believe that we have an obligation to learn about the treaties that we are on. This case speaks to a gap in the law, an area that has not been properly implemented, properly researched. And we have this case coming through that we need to have attention to. The interesting piece about this case is that the law that was argued in it is entirely Canadian law. So in Canada, we have common law and we have civil law in Quebec. And then constitutionally, there is Aboriginal law. So this is codified in the Canadian Constitution. At the same time, there exists indigenous law in Canada. So this was decimated through colonization. And in recent years, there's been a revitalization of it and attempts of working towards that. And in this decision, the parties did not argue indigenous law. They argued Aboriginal law. But they used, and I write about this in the paper, they used indigenous law and procedure, indigenous governance, throughout the hearings of the case. So we saw that they had sacred fires burning during the course of the court hearing. We saw that the court hearing was not just in the courthouse, it was also in the community. So it was a traveling sort of hearing. And we saw that the rules around taking evidence from elders, knowledge keepers, so important in indigenous communities. The rules for taking evidence from elders was altered a little bit to make it more of an culturally appropriate hearing, less adversarial and more working together. I believe that this case is worthy of attention because it gives us a possibility of having indigenous law be present as procedure, even when Aboriginal law or Canadian law is being argued. You have given us here, spice the curiosity, even as a settler in the area. Let us know the one two main conclusions, main highlights of the research before we jump into also an interesting part, which is the policy implications of this. So what are the main highlights of your study? The first is, as I've expressed a little bit, the first main highlight is this idea that we can have indigenous law as procedure. And so that's not to suggest that indigenous law should only be utilized as procedure in a case. Ultimately, we need to have full revitalization of indigenous legal systems. So it's not to suggest that that is the only approach, but it is an attempt to recognize that we have multiple sophisticated and complex strategies that can be pursued in the course of claiming rights. So that finding I think is something that we need to think about in the legal community, and we think about colonialism and its impacts, and how we can revitalize indigenous systems in a truly meaningful way. So that's one piece that I would point to. Another point to is this legal matter is ongoing. So the Supreme Court is going to be hearing the decision in November so hearing an appeal of the lower courts findings. And the lower courts findings were positive towards the indigenous beneficiaries. So the lower courts found that there was an obligation to pay the annuity, and that there was an obligation to increase the annuity, and that this increase was to be calculated in some way related to the resource revenue that had been generated. So that's an important takeaway. It's ongoing. We have to have attention to that and we have to think about this as an opportunity for engagement in resource revenues by persons that are in the treaty lands and particularly the treaty beneficiaries. So that's a significant piece. A third takeaway. It's a bit legal. I'm not sure if people want to hear it. So it's a little legal point in Canada. But there was a standard of treaty review, treaty pardon me, treaty interpretation at the lower courts that was taken and the on appeal the treaty interpretation principles took a lesser standard. And so I have concerns about how treaty interpretation might moving forward and we want to have strong treaty interpretation principles, and we want to defer to those to those judges and those decisions when they've done all this work of being in communities and hearing complex hearings, complex testimonies from elders, etc. These three I last said you mentioned may be a bit curious, you've touched upon this as well about potential practical implications of these as you said the legal process is ongoing you said this twice already so in your opinion, in practical terms what can come in the future so what's potential policy implications of these in the future. So it's Ontario that's appealing it to the Supreme Court, and they're concerned right now is precisely how to calculate the increase in the annuity payments and Ontario believes and argues that the calculations of revenues is a policy matter for the government. And so whilst they can see that yes, the Ontario government will increase annuity payments, the calculation of that is for the government, and it's not something that can be calculated through this idea of looking at the revenue. So that difference is significant, because it's a difference, which would indicate it either on the one hand, close engagement with resource extraction, partnerships and revenues, and the possibilities there for greater partnerships around resource management. On the one hand, versus on the other hand the government continuing to maintain a single a control over resources. The potential for a policy perspective from a policy perspective the potential of having greater engagement in greater engagement partnership respect for generation of resource revenues as a matter of treaty interpretation would be a forward looking and very innovative approach if that were to happen. Okay, and parallel to well the legal process and potential implications in society in politics, scholarly speaking so what's left to study more case studies like this one. More case studies we need to pay attention to what's happening in the legal community with this decision. And then we need to think about how that's going to impact treaties across Canada. A separate research avenue is the trial decision occurred over hundreds of days. The elders gave testimony and protocol was adopted to allow tested elders to testify in a culturally appropriate way. And there was a court hearing that allowed for the elder testimony to be recorded and posted online. There is an archive of all of the elder testimonies and in these testimonies elders are essentially sharing indigenous law. So there is a recorded hundreds of hours of oral history around indigenous law that needs to be maintained the archive needs to be maintained, but I foresee a lot of work being done to consider. To record consider that indigenous law. It's a powerful resource. Of course, just to note also to our listeners about the Supreme Court decision that's an ill mentioned in November. Correct. If I if I heard it correctly. We are recording this in September 2023 so that all listeners have indication of time. Can you provide some additional resources about the topic discussed today. So I would point anyone who's interested I would point them to looking up at these archives taking a few minutes to listen to some elder testimony there there are hundreds of hours. So it would be an undertaking to listen to all of it. The URLs for that are in my work. So you can find all the resources for that. And I would also secondly urge people to read the decision, read the decision from the lower courts and then see what the Supreme Court releases in November of 2023. Okay. Tenille, let's wrap this episode up so if there is anything you want our audience to remember about this talk in one to sentences. What would it be. I would urge listeners to undertake an exercise which is when they are visiting Canada, they are in Canada, working, holidaying, whatever they're doing visiting family to look up the treaty lands that they are in. They are on that is the takeaway from the restore decision is the takeaway from the research. Look up the treaty and read the treaty. Knowing that is reconciliation. Straight to the point to Neil. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. You can find all the resources the archive materials that tenille mentioned and the article that serve this base for this conversation in the let's talk about social inclusion website. Alternatively, we can also listen to this episode, whatever you get your podcast, and you can follow us on Twitter. We are at. LTA.