The Experts

Eric M. Adams, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta

Professor Adams holds degrees from McGill, Dalhousie, and the University of Toronto. Prior to obtaining his SJD he practiced civil litigation at a Toronto law firm. A recipient of both the Tevie Miller Teaching Award and the Provost’s Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Teaching, Professor Adams researches and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, legal history, and employment law. He has published a number of articles and book chapters on Canadian constitutional law, culture, history, and theory.

J Magnet, A Lokan, and E Adams, “‘Arbitrary, Anachronistic and Harsh’ Constitutional Jurisdiction in Relation to Non-Status Indians’ in Legal Aspects of Aboriginal Business Development (Toronto: Lexis/Nexis, 2005) 167.

For a list of publications, please visit: http://lawschool.ualberta.ca/facultystaff/faculty/Eric%20Adams/publications.aspx

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Catherine E. Bell, Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta

Catherine Bell is a Professor of Law at the University of Alberta specialising in Canadian Aboriginal rights law, dispute resolution, property law, cultural heritage law and interdisciplinary community based legal research. She has been a visiting professor and scholar at various universities and has developed curriculum and taught for Program of Legal Studies for Native People (University of Saskatchewan) and Akitsiraq Law School for Inuit students (Nunavut). For several years she also served as a lead faculty member for the Banff Center for Management Aboriginal Leadership and Self-Government Program. She is the recipient of numerous major research grants and awards including the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) 2012 Ramon John Hnatyshyn Gold Medal for Law for her contributions to legal scholarship in Canada, an Aboriginal Justice Award, and a McCalla Professorship for excellence in research. Professor Bell is published widely on Métis and First Nation legal and policy issues and has acted as an advisor to First Nation, Inuit, Métis, federal and provincial government bodies and organisations. She is one of Canada’s leading experts on Metis constitutional rights and is the author of numerous articles on Metis rights theory including “Metis Constitutional Rights in s. 35(1)” and several books including Contemporary Métis Justice: The Settlement Way; Alberta Métis Settlements Legislation:  An Overview of Ownership and Management of Settlement Lands; Intercultural Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts (with Dr. D. Kahane); First Nations’ Cultural Heritage and Law: Case Studies, Voices and Perspectives (with Dr. V. Napoleon); and First Nations’ Cultural Heritage and Law: Reconciliation and Reform (with Robert K. Paterson). Current research includes collaborative legal research with Yukon First Nations, legal and ethical obligations of museums to Indigenous peoples represented in their collections, Métis constitutional rights in Alberta, and an international multi research collaborative initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada on  “Intellectual Property in Cultural Heritage” with particular emphasis on indigenous peoples and the products of archaeological research.

For a list of publications, please visit: http://lawschool.ualberta.ca/facultystaff/faculty/Catherine%20Bell/publications.aspx

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Adam Gaudry, Ph.D Candidate in Indigenous Governance, University of Victoria

Adam Gaudry is a Ph.D. Candidate in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria, and the 2012-2013 Henry Roe Cloud Fellow at Yale University. He is currently completing his dissertation on Métis political history, exploring the many expressions of Métis self-determination in the 19th century North-West.

“The Métis-ization of Canada: The process of claiming Louis Riel, métissage, and the Métis people as Canada’s mythological origin,” aboriginal policy studies 2(2): 64-87. 2013.

Keywords: Métis politics; Métis history; Indigenous governance.

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Frank Tough, Ph.D., Professor of Native Studies, University of Alberta 

Professor Tough has published articles/chapters on the transfer of Rupertsland, Indian economic behaviour during the fur trade, the commercialization of sturgeon fisheries, the importance of fish to the Métis, the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, the Métis Scrip system; and most recently, a comparison of land losses by the Maori, Allotment Indians and the Métis.  Books include: “As Their Natural Resources Fail”: Native Peoples and the Economic History of Northern Manitoba, 1870-1930, and co-authorship with Arthur J. Ray and Jim Miller, Bounty and Benevolence: A History of Saskatchewan Indian Treaties (2000).  Tough’s specialization in archival research regarding Native economic history has resulted in participation as an expert witness in several court cases concerning treaty rights and Métis harvesting rights.  He directed the MAP Lab that produced the Métis National Council’s Historical Online Database (http://metisnationdatabase.ualberta.ca/MNC/).  His perspectives on legal history were enlarged by a recent sojourn as Senior Visiting Fellow with the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics.

Keywords: Métis; Scrip