Shared Futures: The Reordering of Indigenous Justice

Through the lens of an anthropologist of legal consciousness, we take an ethnographic journey to the elusive grail of Indigenous-determined justice in Canada—a journey from the Marshall Inquiry, to RCAP, to the TRC Calls to Action, to the Indigenous Justice Strategy, and beyond.

Professor McMillan critically surveys both obstacles to and community initiatives in the reordering of Indigenous legal principles and practices. She will share what she has learned from Indigenous justice legends and warriors who demand sovereignty over legal process that impacts their peoples. Professor McMillan honours their teachings on how to build a Canada based on our shared futures, futures of mutual trust and healing, where the legal system is a tool, not an impediment, to rights reclamation, cultural reinvigoration, and justice for all.

On this storytelling journey, Jane McMillan shares 30 years of privileged experience and reflects on the costs, effectiveness, and humanity of justice transformation.

From 2006-2016, Professor McMillan held the Canada Research Chair for Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Communities. She served as President of the Canadian Law and Society Association from 2012 to 2014. As a legal anthropologist, she has had the privilege of working with Indigenous communities for close to 30 years, conducting community-driven participatory research and applied policy analysis, and advocating for justice, self-determination and Indigenous treaty and livelihood rights. A former eel fisher and original co-defendant in the Supreme Court of Canada’s Marshall decision (1999), she keenly studies the progress of rights implementation in Mi’kma’ki. Professor McMillan is the author of numerous publications, including the award-winning Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice (UBC Press 2018), and received the Outreach Award from StFX University in 2021. She is a member of the Mi’kmaq/Nova Scotia/Canada Tripartite Forum Justice Committee, the Atlantic Policy Congress First Nations Chief Secretariat’s steering and research subcommittees, the advisory committee of the Indigenous Justice Strategy, and the Board of Directors of Innocence Canada. She served on the Research Advisory Board of the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission, on an “Expert” Advisory Panel to Corrections Service Canada, and, more recently, as Special Advisor, Indigenous Research and Learning Partnerships at St. Francis Xavier University. She is currently the director of the newly established Deveau Centre for Indigenous Governance and Social Justice.