The Pro Bono Students Canada - Queen’s Chapter, an organization dedicated to providing free legal services to low-income Canadians and non-profit associations, is advancing reconciliation with local Indigenous peoples through its new Akwesasne Self-Governance Project.

The initiative connects the Akwesasne Justice Department with Queen’s Law student volunteers who assist with the department’s most pressing legal issues. Under the supervision of a Queen’s Law academic advisor, students research Canadian laws, the Akwesasne community’s bylaws and other supporting documents to develop a Justice of the Peace (JP) curriculum. This will help Akwesasne-based JPs better understand the law and appreciate the community’s perspective. 

Hugo Choquette, Law’05, LLM’10, PhD’17, is a project supervisor, guiding students’ legal research efforts, supporting their learning and achieving concrete results for the Akwesasne community.

“The project’s goal is to develop a lasting, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationship between Queen’s Law and Akwesasne,” says Choquette. “The community is providing Queen’s Law students with a unique opportunity to learn about the legal challenges this First Nations community faces, and the creative solutions they’ve developed in response. Students also learn about Indigenous laws and knowledge.”

In return, he says, students offer their skills and knowledge to help the community pursue its goals and overcome its legal obstacles. 

“As highlighted in the report of the Queen’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC), a key part of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is to build meaningful relationships with local Indigenous communities,” emphasizes Choquette. “Queen’s Law has taken the lead on this partnership. We certainly hope our relationship with Akwesasne will only grow and deepen over time.”

Olivia Bonham-Carter, Law’20, and Ellis Paulin, Law’19, are PBSC-Queen’s program co-coordinators and are overseeing the initiative. “This is the first year of the project, so our main focus is laying the ground work for the years ahead,” states Bonham-Carter. “We are hoping to build this project, so that it becomes one of Queens’ signature initiatives. A few volunteers have told me they’re already interested in continuing it next year.”

Akwesasne’s territory overlaps with five legal jurisdictions: the federal governments of United States and Canada, and the state/provincial governments of New York, Ontario and Quebec. This creates challenges involving multiple areas of law, often forcing local residents to cross international borders for work or school. These challenges involve multiple areas of law, making Queen’s Law volunteers all the more influential to Akwesasne’s future.

“This is an incredibly important step towards achieving the Akwesasne Justice Department’s mandate of empowering the community,” declares Paulin. “We hope that this project will help the department provide services and develop a self-governance framework that can become a model to communities across Canada.”

As program co-coordinators, Bonham-Carter and Paulin work largely behind the scenes, assisting student volunteers and ensuring they remain committed to the initiative. The project was made possible by the enormous contribution of time and effort of Ann Deer, the school’s Indigenous Recruitment and Support Coordinator who hails from the Akwesasne community, as well as Mike Molas, career counsellor and a program supervisor for PBSC-Queen’s.

The Akwesasne Self-Governance Project is led by Alina Smirnova, Law’19, with the aid of volunteers Darian Doblej, Anthony Gallo and Brandon Maracle, all Law’21. 

For Doblej, this volunteer experience represents more than just a positive step toward Queen’s law’s reconciliation efforts with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. “This goes above and beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission call upon Canadian law schools to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law,” professes Doblej. “This partnership showcases the high calibre of students at Queen’s Law. We actively work with First Nations to achieve self-governance, and in the process gain the opportunity to mould an entire system’s future.”

Gallo and Maracle are equally excited to be involved in the project. “It’s incredible to work with fellow students who share a passion for Indigenous issues,” says Maracle.

For her part, Smirnova is grateful to the Akwesasne Justice Department for showing her group its impressive work and hosting the Queen’s Law community on multiple occasions. She believes that working with them is essential in taking the TRC Calls to Action seriously.

“The TRC has specifically called on law schools to take action in order to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance reconciliation,” stresses Smirnova. “We are in a privileged position to understand the legal system and work on others’ behalf to meet their goals and to affect change not only in Akwesasne, but in Canada more generally.”

So far, Smirnova is impressed with the Akwesasne Justice Department’s capacity to address issues in ways that respect local needs, traditions and laws. In addition to passing laws and adjudicating issues in the Akwesasne Mohawk Court, she cites the department’s extensive community consultation methods and plain-language legal drafting as common-sense approaches that foster legitimacy, accessibility and compliance with the system.

“As a law student, I feel lucky to have the chance to learn about legal traditions from this different perspective,” she admits.

If Queen’s Law students are interested in learning more about the issues facing Canada’s Indigenous communities, Smirnova recommends that they join the Indigenous Law Students’ Alliance on Facebook and get involved on the PBSC-Queen’s Akwesasne Self-Governance Project next year. 

By Justin Murphy