Our Work

Our clients retain us in Aboriginal and Treaty rights litigation and claims research, negotiating new arrangements with other governments, designing institutions and governmental service delivery agencies, legislative drafting, and advice in assisting with their self-government, economic development and corporate and commercial projects.

We have brought test cases on Aboriginal law to Canadian courts, argued court interventions introducing the unique perspectives of our clients, assisted the strategic planning of important cases, and structured economic development and service delivery institutions.

The firm's areas of practice are:

First Nations Citizenship and Indian Act Registration;
Aboriginal and Treaty rights litigation;
Economic development and corporations;
Non-Profit service delivery organizations;
Reserve land use planning;
Consultation and accommodation of natural resource rights;
Self-government and First Nations laws;
Historical specific claims;
Oral History and Ethnohistory;
Indian Residential Schools;
Indian Act Taxation;

Client Results

Some of our clients' successes include:

Litigating in the supreme court of canada the exemption for seizure on reserve for a Cree Nation in Manitoba;
Litigating the court appointment of a receiver over a Cree First Nation in Alberta;
Litigating the exemption from the smoking ban for first nations in the Manitoba Court of Appeal;
Litigating the Indian Act’s definition of Indian status and its infringement of the right of a Cree Nation to define its identity;
Advising and drafting one of the first Land Codes for a Manitoba Cree Nation;
Structuring intergovernmental self-government arrangements and entities with HRSDC and health Canada and arrangements between First Nations;
Establishing and structuring economic development corporations, by-laws, and other legal structures;
Litigating the third party interest provisions of First Nations treaty land entitlement rights;
Litigating residential schools claims and limitations periods;
Litigating sub standard health care and housing provided to first nations on reserve;
Advising on rights to consultation and accommodation in mining and fishing;
Counsel on natural resources use, historical and specific claims, Indian Act, by-laws and self government;
Advising on Indian Act taxation;
Advising on settlement and claims implementation;
Counsel to First Nations non-profit entities and Chiefs on organizational and self-government structures;