Biography & Autobiography Lawyers & Judges
Against the Odds
The Indigenous Rights Cases of Thomas R. Berger
- Publisher
- Durvile Publications
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2024
- Category
- Lawyers & Judges, Indigenous Peoples
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781990735486
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $37.50
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Description
Against the Odds documents the remarkable achievements of Thomas R. Berger in the legal field, including his pioneering work in advocating for Indigenous rights that courts in Canada and the US had previously overlooked. Mid-career, Justice Thomas Berger accepted the challenge of leading the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in Canada’s Northwest Territories. He organized the Inquiry to give northern First Nations an equal voice in the proceedings by holding thirty community hearings in which all were invited to participate. Berger’s careful, reasoned arguments prevailed time and time again. Later in his career, Justice Berger led public hearings into the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), focusing on its impacts on Native Alaskans. Against the Odds also features an exceptional gallery of full-colour, previously unpublished photographs of the Dene and Inuvialuit, taken by Michael Jackson KC, Special Counsel for the Berger Inquiry, and portrait photographer Linda MacCannell.
About the authors
Hamar Foster is a professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria.
Thomas Rodney Berger QC OC OBC was a Canadian politician and jurist. He was briefly a member of the House of Commons of Canada in the early 1960s and was a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia from 1971 to 1983. In 1974, he became the royal commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, which released its findings in 1977. He was a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia. Justice Berger died on April 28, 2021.
Thomas R. Berger's profile page
Michael Jackson has committed his professional career to advancing the cause of human rights in Canada and internationally for more than thirty years. In 1999, Michael Jackson was appointed Queen's Counsel in acknowledgement of his contributions to the protection of human rights in Canada.
Michael Jackson's profile page
Jean Teillet, IPC (B.F.A., LL.B., LL.M.), Partner, Pape Salter Teillet LLP, Barristers & Solicitors, Vancouver, BC and Toronto, ON.
Ms. Teillet is called to the Bar in Ontario, BC, NWT, Manitoba and Yukon. She specializes in aboriginal rights litigation and negotiations and is currently the chief negotiator for the Stó:lo Xwexwilmexw >who are negotiating a treaty in the lower Fraser Valley in BC. >Ms. Teillet has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in ten cases. She maintains an active role as a public speaker and primarily speaks on aboriginal rights, access to justice, identity and equality issues. She is published in many journals and law books and is the author of the annually updated Métis Law in Canada. In addition to her aboriginal rights work, Ms. Teillet works in the field of reproductive rights. She is an adjunct professor at the UBC Faculty of Law.
Ms. Teillet was the first recipient of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Lincoln Alexander Award. In 2011, Ms. Teillet was awarded the title “Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel” by the Indigenous Bar Association. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates: Guelph University (2014); Law Society of Upper Canada (2015).
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Ms. Teillet worked for twenty years as a writer, dancer, actor, choreographer, director and producer.
Jean has also been a visual artist for over thirty years. Her work is in private collections in the United States and Canada. One beaded piece, a replica of the “Two Row Wampum Belt” hangs in Flavelle Hall in the Law School of the University of Toronto as a symbol that two different peoples may embrace different legal regimes and still establish a working relationship if that relationship is built on respect and honesty. The University of Toronto Faculty of Law also holds three other replica wampum belts created by Ms. Teillet – the Covenant Chain Belt, the Micmac Vatican Belt and the Hiawatha Belt.
Ms. Teillet is the great grand niece of Louis Riel.
Excerpt: Against the Odds: The Indigenous Rights Cases of Thomas R. Berger (by (author) Drew Ann Wake, Thomas R. Berger, Michael Jackson, Jean Teillet & Dalee Sambo Dorough; foreword by Hamar Foster; afterword by Shaznay Waugh)
Confrontation in Norman Wells
Three weeks after the General Assembly ended, the Yellowknife newspaper, News of the North, published the draft of the Dene Declaration that had been discussed. It came with a stinging critique by the newspaper’s publisher, Colin Alexander, who called it “… a draft plan of action for a war of liberation.”
The article was picked up by the newspaper in Inuvik, The Drum. There the publisher, Tom Butters, aired his opinion that the Dene Declaration had been written by a ‘white’ theoretical revolutionary. “The objectives are general and vague and the prose loosely structured from the Maoist, Communist lexicon, ie. creating democratic and egalitarian organizations…”
The news about the Dene Declaration upset many non-Dene citizens who feared that the growing unrest might weaken the dominant role of industry and government in the communities.
Days after the newspapers published their opinions, Judge Berger arrived in Norman Wells. The community had a decades-long history with the petroleum industry. Raymond Yakeleya recalls that his grandfather had seen oil seeping onto his land. “If you picked up a rock from one of the houses and threw it, the rock would land where the oil was seeping up. The Elders wanted to see what properties oil had so they’d take a little cup of oil and pour it on the fire and the fire would come up. So for many generations, our people knew about this oil.”
In the early 1900s, the family took a pail of the oil to the Bishop and authorized him to send it south to be analyzed. It went to Pittsburgh, where they discovered that the oil was of very high quality. But the report was never sent back to the family.
“All of a sudden we saw geologists staking claims around our grandparents’ houses,” says Raymond. “They sent a drill rig down in 1919. My grandparents came back home one day and these white men were occupying their homes. They drilled and went down 700 feet and hit the main pool of oil.”
Very quickly, Norman Wells developed into a white man’s town. Imperial Oil built huge oil storage tanks along the bank of the river. A pipeline followed. During World War II one of the large tanks burst, and oil flooded into the river. Thousands of ducks died.
By mid-century, Norman Wells was divided between Dene families and newcomers from the south. The company store was only open to those who worked for Imperial Oil and the rule was rigorously enforced. In the 1960s, when two young Dene men from the community of Tulita drowned in a boating accident near Norman Wells, residents of Tulita travelled fifty miles downriver to search for their bodies. After a week, they ran out of food. The Chief asked the store in Norman Wells to sell food to the search party, but the manager refused. The bitterness is still palpable.
Editorial Reviews
“For many, the impact of the Berger Inquiry Report, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland lent credence to the idea that Indigenous voices could and should be heard and taken into account in decisions that affect Indigenous Peoples and their lands. More than 40 years later, development on Indigenous lands continues to be a challenging issue facing Canada and Indigenous People are regularly consulted throughout the process." — Chief Justice Shannon Smallwood, Supreme Court of the NWT
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