Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure to meet with your committee as you make your way around our country. Thank you for your efforts to reach out across the nation.
As president of the University of Victoria, I welcome this opportunity to speak to you about our proposed indigenous law program and how it directly responds to the focus of this committee. In my remarks this morning, I'll outline what it will take to deliver on a groundbreaking program at the University of Victoria and the impact this would have across the country, and indeed around the world.
The University of Victoria is one of Canada's premier research and teaching universities, educating over 22,000 students a year. In particular, UVic is a national leader in closing the educational gap for indigenous students. Over the last decade, our enrolment of indigenous students has more than tripled, and it continues to grow along with a vibrant body of research conducted by indigenous scholars at the university.
Right now Canada and indigenous peoples are working to build the elements of a nation-to-nation relationship and establish a new era of respect and reconciliation. The Government of Canada and indigenous peoples expect that by restoring their relationship and by building robust institutions, they will promote effective governance and inclusive economic growth. UVic shares that commitment to reconciliation. Just last month, we launched our most comprehensive indigenous plan ever. It outlines how UVic strives to integrate and honour indigenous cultures, histories, and ways of knowing into our curriculum, our teaching, and our research. We believe that indigenous peoples must share in a socially, culturally, and economically viable future for all of us. Our programs of education and research focus on matters like indigenous language revitalization, culture, and social and economic capacity building with nations across the country.
Today I want to speak specifically about our proposed indigenous law program. Like other laws, indigenous law is about citizenship, governance, managing conflict, and interacting with peoples beyond one's own society. As indigenous peoples increasingly exercise jurisdiction over their lands, resources, and affairs, they draw upon their own legal traditions and principles of social order.
The indigenous law program would be composed of two key components that respond to those needs. The first is a four-year dual degree in which students would acquire degrees in both common law and indigenous legal orders. Students would participate in practical, hands-on learning in field schools and would work on indigenous territories across the entire country, learning from indigenous experts and contributing to the operation of indigenous institutions. They would gain the skills to build processes that draw upon indigenous traditions to translate across indigenous and non-indigenous legal, social, and economic structures.
The second component is the “indigenous legal lodge”, which is a national forum for critical engagement, debate, learning, public education, and partnerships on indigenous legal traditions and their use, their refinement, and their reconstruction today. This would house the educational programs that I've described and be both a national gathering place for professional and community education on indigenous legal traditions and a research institute promoting rigorous engagement across Canada, and indeed around the world.
As I said, this will be an institution of national significance, and indeed international significance, as countries worldwide are struggling with similar challenges in how to recognize and work with indigenous legal orders. It will serve as a global centre of excellence for understanding, developing, and deploying indigenous legal institutions, including the structures that can build and sustain healthy relationships between indigenous peoples and states.
The programs will be led by some of Canada's finest indigenous scholars and leaders, including Dr. Val Napoleon, who joins me here today. Dr. Napoleon, for example, leads the indigenous law research unit at the University of Victoria, which has worked with over 40 communities across Canada to create robust legal resources, tools, processes, and practices grounded in indigenous legal traditions.
The University of Victoria is requesting financial support from the federal government to build the indigenous legal lodge and to fulfill this vision of an iconic, culturally appropriate facility and a marquee legacy investment, fulfilling the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Both the program and the lodge directly fulfill the TRC's call to action number 50, which calls for the establishment of institutes of indigenous law. They support the Government of Canada's commitment to a nation-to-nation relationship, advance the 10 principles respecting the Government of Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, and help to provide substance to the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
By supporting this program, the government would also be responding to indigenous peoples from across Canada who've expressed support for this program. This support culminated in a resolution, unopposed, and by a consensus of the chiefs in assembly. At the 2017 AGM of the Assembly of First Nations, the resolution was passed to urge the Government of Canada to fund the establishment of the University of Victoria's indigenous legal lodge as a foundation for understanding, researching, and deliberating upon the nature of indigenous legal systems and their continued use today.
Reconciliation is intrinsically dependent upon the recognition of the rights and traditions of indigenous peoples. This program furthers reconciliation by recognizing and supporting the legal orders on which self-government depends—indeed, which form the very fabric of indigenous nationhood. In doing so, it lays the foundation for a new era of economic partnership and resource development by contributing to robust governance structures anchored in the communities' own laws. It lays the foundation for mutual respect and shared prosperity for indigenous peoples and for all Canadians.
Thank you very much for this opportunity. Both Dr. Napoleon and I are available and happy to interact with the committee if there are any questions.