In a new piece published by the Canadian Bar Association’s National Magazine, Tamara (Baldhead) Pearl asserts that legal education is “ground zero” for reconciliation in Alberta.
She is a PhD candidate, Sessional Lecturer and the Indigenous Student Support Manager at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law. In her piece, she remarks on the explicit recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report, specifically the Call to Action #28, whereby law schools in Canada would require all law students to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations.
On the Wednesday, June 16, 2021 episode of Alberta Morning, CKUA’s Grant Stovel spoke with Pearl about her proposal for using the Nēhiyawak or Plains Cree concept: māmawī wīcihitowin (meaning “working together, helping one another”) in anti-dominance training for Canadian law school curriculum.