Speaker Series

The Indigenous Peoples and Justice Programs annual lecture series is meant to showcase individuals who have a made an exceptional contribution to the objectives of Indigenous Knowledge and Justice.

Up Coming Speakers
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Check Back Soon!

Past Speakers
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Wanda McCaslin - March 16, 2011
“Reviewing Relationships of Respect: Judicial Sentencing of Hating Actions”

Wanda D. McCaslin, B.A., J.D., LL.M. (Can.) is a Métis woman from Northern Saskatchewan. She obtained her B.A. in political science and her J.D. from the University of Saskatchewan. She is currently undertaking an LL.M. examining the sentencing provisions of hate-motivated crimes.  She is an academic, author, Sessional lecturer (academic support program at the College of Law), and a legal researcher for the Saskatchewan Law Foundation Research Officer at the Native Law Centre, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan.  Throughout her career, social justice issues of hatred, justice and security, healing, restoration and collaboration

Marilyn is a Métis woman born and raised in Saskatchewan. She has been working within the legal arena for 25 years. Her experience includes work with every level of Indigenous government, provincial and territorial governments as well as federal government departments. She also works with Indigenous communities, institutions and government on issues of justice, governance, education, and culture as well as traditional Indigenous laws with Canadian Elders. Her work extends to international communities with a focus on ancestral domain and access to justice.
Marilyn’s expertise is in the area of Constitutional law, Aboriginal law, Traditional law and access to justice. She teaches Criminal Law and Concepts of Justice and Reconciliation. She is an alumni of the Native Law Centre Program of Legal Studies for Native People, the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan and has a Masters from Harvard Law School. Marilyn is the mother of four and currently lives with in Saskatoon, teaching at the College of Law.

Penelope C. Sanz: March 31, 2010
"Mining a Sacred Mountain. Protecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A Human Rights Impact Assessment - Philippine Report "

Penelope C. Sanz is a research fellow and Secretary of the Board of the Mindanawon Initiatives for Cultural Dialogue, a non-stock non-profit organization that journeys with indigenous peoples particularly on issues of mining/extractive industries, internally displaced persons, conflict and peace. She is also a founding member and board member of the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center, an organization of media practitioners in Mindanao that operates Mindanews.com, which is composed of independent, professional journalists who believe and practice people empowerment through media. She has organized and created programs for the two organizations that fosters cultural dialoguing and in ensuring that indigenous voices and interests are surfaced

Poster

Rodolfo Pino: November 26, 2009
"Towards the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples"

Rodolfo Pino is an Aymara First Nation fromLatin America. He currently teaches in IPJP, Anthropology, Sociology, Native Studies, and Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. When Rodolfo is not busy teaching or winning community awards, he is an accomplished and world-renown musician and composer. For more information please visithttp://www.rodolfopino-robles.ca/bio.html

Poster

James [SÁKÉJ] Youngblood Henderson: March 17, 2009
" Indigenous Renaissance: Indigenous Diplomacy and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples"

JAMES [SÁKÉJ] YOUNGBLOOD HENDERSON, a member of the bear clan of the Chickasaw Nation, is an internationally recognized authority in Indigenous knowledge, heritage and jurisprudence, constitutional rights and human rights. He is research director at the Native Law Centre of Canada and teaches Aboriginal law at the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. He is the author of The Road: Indian Tribes and Political Liberty; Mi’kmaq Concordat, Aboriginal Tenure in the Constitution of Canada, First Nation Jurisprudences and Aboriginal Rights, Treaty Rights in the Constitution of Canada, and Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, Indigenous Diplomacy and the Rights of Peoples: Achieving UN Recognition and has contributed to many other books and journals. He was one of the strategists who created the Indigenous diplomacy network, working through the Four Directions Council, an NGO, in the UN system, and he was a member of the drafting team for many of the existing documents, including the ILO Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1991), Guidelines and Principles for the Protection of Indigenous Heritage (1994-2001), and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). He has been an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (2003-1997) and the UNESCO Convention of Cultural Diversity. Since 2000, he has been a member of the Canadian Commission to UNESCO. His achievements in international and national law have been recognized by the Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel (2005), the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice (2006), and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws, Carlton University (2007).

Poster

George Sefa Dei is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. He is author of Schooling and Education in Africa (2004); Anti-Racism Education (1996) andHardships and Survival in Rural West Africa (1992). He is the co-author of Playing the Race Card: White Power and Privilege (2004) and Reconstructing ‘Drop-out’:A Critical Ethnography of theDynamics of Black Students’ Disengagement from School (1996). He has co-edited seven books, including: The Poetics of Anti-Racism (2006); Anti-Colonialism and Education (2006); African Education and Globalization (2006); Schooling and Difference in Africa (2006); Critical Issues in Anti-Racist Research Methodologies (2005); Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts (2000); Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism as well as Education and Anti-Racist Feminism (2000). Professor Dei has served as a board member for several community-based organizations in Ontario. He is a member and founder of several advisory committees on education, and has received numerous awards.

Poster

Professor Paul Chartrand’s professional interests focus mainly on law and policy relating to Indigenous peoples. This includes domestic, international and comparative studies. Other interests include history, particularly legal history, the philosophies of Indigenous peoples, and relations between Indigenous peoples. A particular subject of interest has been the issue of identifying Indigenous people for the purposes of state law and policy.

Poster

Nicholas Vrooman is one of the few scholars in the United States working in Metis Studies over this last generation. He brought back to print and wrote the new introduction to the seminal book of Metis history, Strange Empire, A Narrative of the Northwest, by Joseph Kinsey Howard. He produced the award winning and Library of Congress Top Ten Albums of American Traditional Music for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Plains Chippewa/Metis Music from Turtle Mountain. Additionally, he was a principle essayist and editor for, Metis Legacy, An Historiography and Annotated Bibliography, for Pemmican Publications, Louis Riel Institute, and Gabriel Dumont Institute. Vrooman has the essay "Echoes of Discovery, The Metis Role in Northwest Expansion," in Lewis & Clark: The Unheard Voices, forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, 2006. He currently teaches in the History Department at the University of Montana while completing his doctorate, and serves as Indian Education Specialist to the Montana Office of Public Instruction on issues of the "Indian Education for All" constitutional mandate.

Poster

Wenona Victor: November 9, 2005
"Searching For The Bone Needle": A Journey in Coming to Understand Aboriginal Justice”

Wenona Victor is Stó:lo, the name-carrier for Qwi:qwelstom, and has managed the Stó:lo Justice department for 7 years. Her Master’s thesis in the SFU School of Criminology involved interviews with community Elders regarding traditional Stó:lo justice principles and practices and outlined how these might be linked to a contemporary system of a community-based and community-controlled justice system. She returned to SFU in the Fall of 2005 to undertake her doctorate in Criminology; her dissertation will involve further consideration of Aboriginal justice and its place in the context of broader governance processes and the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples. As well, Wenona is a mother and a wife married to Ernie Victor from Cheam and together they have three beautiful children – a six year old daughter named Jade and two sons, Justice who is 3 years old and Alexis who is 1 and a half years old.

Wenona and Boys

Dr. Bonita Lawrence: (Mi’kmaw) is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, where she teaches Native Studies and anti-racism. Her research and publications have focused primarily on gender and colonization, federally unrecognized Aboriginal communities, and urban, non-status and Metis identities. She is a traditional singer who continues to sing with groups in Kingston and Toronto at Native social and political gatherings. She has recently published Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native People and Indigenous Nationhood. University of Nebraska Press and UBC Press, 2004. With Kim Anderson, she has co-edited a collection of Native women’s scholarly and activist writing entitled Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival (Toronto: Sumach Press 2003) as well as guest-editing a recent edition of Atlantis, entitled Indigenous Women: The State of Our Nations.

Poster

Dr Wanda Wuttunee: October 21, 2005
“Insights on Aboriginal Economic Governance”

Dr. Wanda Wuttunee is currently the Acting Department head, Native Studies and Director of the Aboriginal Business Education Program, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba. Dr. Wuttunee is the author of “Living Rhythms: Lessons in Aboriginal Economic Resilience and Vision”

Poster

Dr. Kiera Ladner is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. She holds degrees from the University of Calgary, the University of Saskatchewan and Carleton University. Dr. Ladner's research interests include Indigenous governance, treaty constitutionalism, Indigenous theory and methods, as well as Canadian politics and federalism.

Poster