Affirmative Action and Aboriginal Government: The Case for Legal Education in Nunavut

Abstract

AbstractThe Nunavut Land Claim Agreement commits federal and territorial governments to the recruitment and training of Inuit for positions throughout government. In the justice sector, there is currently a major shortage of Inuit lawyers or future judges. However, there also appears to be a fundamental mismatch between what existing law schools offer and what Inuit students are prepared to accept. A northern-based law school might remedy some of these problems. However, support for a law school requires un-thinking certain key tenets of legal education as we know it in Canada. In particular, it may require a step outside the university-based law school system. Universities appear to be accepted as the exclusive guardian of the concept of academic standards. Admission standards, in particular, serve as both a positivist technology of exclusion, and a political rationale for the persistence of majoritarian institutions as the major means of training members of disadvantaged communities. Distinctive institutions – eventually working with university-based law schools – have the potential to help bridge the education gap between Inuit and other Canadians. In so doing, they have the potential to train a critical mass of Inuit to meaningfully adapt the justice system to become a pillar of the public government in the Inuit homeland of Nunavut.