McGregor, Deborah

Professor Deborah McGregor joined York University’s Osgoode Hall law faculty in 2015 as a cross-appointee with the Faculty of Environmental Studies & Urban Change. Professor McGregor’s research has focused on Indigenous knowledge systems and their various applications in diverse contexts including water and environmental governance, environmental justice, forest policy and management, and sustainable development. Her research has been published in a variety of national and international journals and she has delivered numerous public and academic presentations relating to Indigenous knowledge systems, governance and sustainability. She co-edited Indigenous Peoples and Autonomy: Insights for a Global Age with Mario Blaser, Ravi De Costa and William Coleman (2010). She is co-editor (with Alan Corbiere, Mary Ann Corbiere and Crystal Migwans) of the Anishinaabewin conference proceedings series.

Professor McGregor, who is Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation, Birch Island, Ontario, is the Primary Investigator on two current SSHRC-funded projects:

Indigenous Environmental (In)Justice: theory and practice. (Insight Grant). Co-applicants: Dayna Nadine Scott (Osgoode Hall Law School), Brenda Murphy (Wilfred Laurier University), Martha Stiegman (Faculty of Environmental Studies & Urban Change). Collaborators: Mary Ann Corbiere (Laurentian University), Kathleen Padulo (Chiefs of Ontario), Sue Chiblow (Garden River First Nation), Nancy DeLeary (Chippewas of the Thames).

Indigenizing the First Nations Land Management Regime. (Insight Development Grant). Co-applicants: Heather Dorries (Carleton University) and Gabrielle Slowey (York University).

She is a co-applicant in two other current SSHRC projects:

Indigenous Knowledge Transfer in Urban Aboriginal Communities with Professor Kim Anderson (Wilfred Laurier University); and Exploring Distinct Indigenous Knowledge Systems to Inform Fisheries Governance and Management on Canada’s Coasts with Professor Lucia Fanning (Dalhousie University).

Prior to joining Osgoode, Professor McGregor was an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto and served as Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives and the Aboriginal Studies program. She has also served as Senior Policy Advisor, Aboriginal Relations at Environment Canada-Ontario Region. In addition to such posts, Professor McGregor remains actively involved in a variety of Indigenous communities, serving as an advisor and continuing to engage in community-based research and initiatives.

Professor McGregor coordinated an Indigenous Environmental Justice (IEJ) Symposium in May 2016 featuring the voices of women and youth. She also recently launched an IEJ website.

Research Interests: Indigenous environmental justice, Indigenous governance and law, sustainability, water governance and security, and Indigenous knowledge systems.

Slattery, Brian

Professor Brian Slattery joined Osgoode Hall Law School in 1981, having previously held positions at the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), and McGill University.

Known for his foundational work on Aboriginal rights and constitutional theory, Professor Slattery has devoted much of his scholarship to overhauling the standard conception of the Canadian Constitution in a way that takes account of the distinctive rights and historical contributions of Aboriginal peoples.

In other scholarly work, Professor Slattery has explored the philosophical foundations of human rights and the continuing vitality of the natural law tradition. In the 1990s, Professor Slattery served as a senior advisor to the Federal Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1995 and was named a York University Distinguished Research Professor in 2009.

McNeil, Kent

Kent McNeil is an Emeritus Distinguished Research Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he taught from 1987 to 2016.  His research focuses on the rights of Indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.  In 2007, he received a Killam Fellowship to pursue this research. In 2019, he was the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan H. Robert Arscott Chair at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law, his alma mater.

In addition to his academic work, Professor McNeil has acted as a consultant for numerous Indigenous organizations and has been an expert witness in court cases in Canada and Belize. He is currently working on sovereignty issues in relation to the European colonization of North America and the development of international law in this context.  He will be pursuing this research as a Fulbright Canada Distinguished Chair in International Area Studies at Yale University in 2021-22.

Imai, Shin

After he became a lawyer in 1980, Shin Imai practised at Keewaytinok Native Legal Services in Moosonee and later had his own practice in the areas of human rights, refugee law and indigenous rights. He joined the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General in 1989 to work on the development of Alternative Dispute Resolution programs and to initiate justice projects in indigenous communities.

He was appointed to faculty at Osgoode in 1996 and is currently a director of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project. He has served as Academic Director at Parkdale Community Legal Services, the Director of the Intensive Program on Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments, Director of Clinical Education, and Co-director of the Latin American Network on Research and Education in Human Rights (RedLEIDH).

Imai was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award at the Law School in 2004 and 2007, and the University-wide Teaching Award in 2010.

Daum Shanks, Signa A.

Signa A. Daum Shanks started at Osgoode in 2014 after working at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law. Her teaching has included classes such as Torts, Law and Economics, Aboriginal Self-government, Canadian Legal History,  the Kawaskimhon Aboriginal Rights Moot,  Game Theory and the Law (via Monash University Law School), Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law, Comparative Indigenous Legal Traditions and Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian Constitution in the part-time LLM in Constitutional Law. As well, she has taught at the summer program hosted at the Indigenous Law Centre in Saskatoon and the Nunavut Law Program in Iqaluit.

Research Interests: Law and Economics, Indigenous Governance, Legal History

Currently on leave.

Boisselle, Andrée

Andrée Boisselle’s research interests are in the areas of indigenous law, comparative and constitutional law, pluralism and postcolonial legal theory.  She is currently completing her doctorate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria.  Her doctoral research on Stó:lõ constitutionalism and the Coast Salish legal tradition has been supported by scholarships from the Trudeau Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  Her master’s thesis critically examined the development of the duty to consult First Nations in Canadian law.  It received the Quebec Association of Law Professors Prize in 2008.  Before pursuing graduate studies, she practised litigation in Québec with McCarthy Tétrault LLP and did contractual work with the Supreme Court of Canada.