JustResearch Issue 15

Welcome

Welcome to the 15th edition of JustResearch, a bi-annual publication of the Research and Statistics Division of the Department of Justice Canada. This edition focuses on First Nations, Inuit and Métis research issues.[1]

Over the last ten years, legislation, reports and Supreme Court of Canada decisions relating to Aboriginal Peoples have resulted in specific research needs. Of particular note is the 1993 comprehensive land claim agreement between the Inuit of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada. Following the April 1, 1999 creation of Nunavut as Canada’s third territory, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) made a commitment to assist the new territory in establishing a justice system in keeping with the Nunavut Act (1999). As part of this commitment, the Research and Statistics Division (RSD) undertook research in collaboration with the newly formed Nunavut Government Department of Justice to assist officials in building, monitoring and assessing the implementation of justice programs and initiatives in keeping with this Act. This body of research is summarized in our “Research in Profile section”. This section also includes summaries of research completed with Aboriginal youth in custody, legal aid needs, and research undertaken on victimization and First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples.

The work of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and Supreme Court Decisions, such as R. v.Gladue [1999], have had rippling effects in attention and engagement. Both RCAP and the Gladue decision are integral to the research which examines the link between the ongoing experiences of the colonization process on First Nations. Métis and Inuit Peoples and its impacts on current involvement with the criminal justice system as both victims and offenders. The findings of this research are provided in the article Understanding Family Violence and Sexual Assault and First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples in the Territories.

Extensive research was also undertaken by RSD in response to the 2003 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Powley [2003]. This was the first case where Métis people had been able to successfully assert an Aboriginal right and it provides a basis upon which other Métis Aboriginal rights can be argued. The methodology used and reports of this research are summarized in the article A Program of Research Related to Historical Métis Communities.

In addition, how Aboriginal research issues themselves are understood, is changing. Rupert Ross, Crown Prosecutor responsible for prosecutions in north-western Ontario, explores the need for a paradigm shift in the context of social justice and Aboriginal Peoples. The questions he raises in his papers Exploring Criminal Justice and the Aboriginal Healing Paradigm (forthcoming), and Traumatization in Remote First Nations: an Expression of Concern (unpublished), became the basis of a forum held by the Department of Justice in March, 2007. A summary of this forum, “Forum on Justice System Responses to Violence in Northern and Remote Aboriginal Communities,” is included in this issue.

The importance of a paradigm shift in the way First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples are understood in traditional discourses and included in the research processes is the focus of a dialogue between the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Aboriginal researchers. In the preamble to their submission, Professor Jo-Ann Episkew, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of English, and Dr. Winona Wheeler, Dean of the Saskatoon Campus and Associate Professor of Indian Studies, Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, wrote that a significant element in solutions is “the need to shift the research paradigm from one in which outsiders seek solutions to the ‘Indian problem’ to one in which Indigenous people conduct research and facilitatesolutions themselves.” The report of this dialogue, Opportunities in Aboriginal Research: Results of SSHRC’s Dialogue on Research and Aboriginal Peoples,is included here because of its relevance to the work that we as researchers all do.

This edition of JustResearch is dedicated to Dr. Gail Guthrie Valaskakis. Dr. Guthrie Valaskakis had described herself as being born with a moccasin on one foot (her father was Chippewa) and a shoe on the other (her mother was Dutch–American). She broke new ground and excelled in both worlds. She was co-founder of the Montreal Native Friendship Centre, and went on to become Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University in 1992, one of the very few females to become a Dean in Canada at that time. Dr. Guthrie Valaskakis left this position to become Director of Research for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in 1998. Her many, many contributions were recognized, and in 2002, she received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award.

Dr. Guthrie Valaskakis passed away in July of 2007. I had the privilege of meeting and working with Gail. She was an inspiration and a generous mentor; she was tireless, gracious, impassioned and brilliant. She was to be co-editor of this edition of JustResearch. I know that it would have been quite different if she had been.

Anna Paletta, Editor

Past issues of JustResearch are available at: https://canada.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/jr.html

[1] First Nations, Inuit and Métis are sometimes referred to here as Aboriginal peoples when referring to each of these groups together, or where used in original documents.