Political Science Lecture: “After Cowichan”

Join guest speaker Dwight Newman as he discusses the post-Cowichan landscape in his lecture titled, “After Cowichan: Finding Ways to Respect Both Aboriginal Title and Private Property.”

In his talk, Professor Newman, KC, FRSC, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities, and Constitutional Law at the University of Saskatchewan (and former Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law) will do five key things:

(1) Unpack the Cowichan decision’s implications, and show why its reasoning raises profound economic and moral issues in addition to threatening relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities

(2) Show that aspects of the Cowichan decision stem from problematic turns Canadian courts made in the past, whereby they changed a legal doctrine that tried to show honourable respect for property rights of Indigenous communities into a body of increasingly unmoored law that the courts constantly modify in ways generating unexpected problems for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities

(3) Suggest that courts themselves could address some of the challenges of the Cowichan decision by looking to better reasoning within some of the past case law

(4) Argue that the courts’ failures in Cowichan and other cases may also invite legislative and potentially constitutional intervention to respond to the problems arising

(5) Show how some of the possible legislative and/or constitutional responses can seek to be respectful of everyone’s property interests and contribute to better relationships on into our shared futures

The talk will focus partly on the Cowichan decision itself, but will mainly explore what comes after Cowichan and how both courts and policy-makers can work toward better shared futures for Indigenous and non-Indigenous British Columbians

The event is sponsored by the Institute for Liberal Studies. Everyone is welcome, and registration is not required.