McKercher Lecture: Reconciliation after Cowichan
General
Reconciliation After Cowichan, the BC UNDRIP Decision, and Related Cases: with Professor Dwight Newman, KC, Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities and Constitutional Law
Event Details
When:
Time: noon–1 pm
Location: MLT Aikins Lecture Theatre (Room 150), College of Law, 15 Campus Drive
Speaker: Dwight Newman, KC, Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities and Constitutional Law
In August 2025, a British Columbia trial judge rendered the Cowichan decision, which appeared to give priority to Aboriginal title over private property. In December 2025, the British Columbia Court of Appeal rendered its judgment in Gitxaala v Chief Gold Commissioner and said that B.C.’s legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) now empowered courts to strike down legislation. Both will be in the appeal process for years.
This talk will examine how the August 2025 Cowichan case, the BC UNDRIP case, and related Indigenous rights cases in the year since may have put reconciliation in jeopardy and why there are challenging conversations ahead. It will also offer suggestions on finding good paths forward that respect both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
This event is part of the McKercher Lecture Series.
About the speaker:
Dwight Newman, KC, DPhil (Oxford) is Professor of Law and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities, and Constitutional Law at the University of Saskatchewan, where he has been on faculty since 2005. He served the maximum two terms in a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law from 2013 to 2023. He has also served a term as Associate Dean Academic.
He has over 200 publications of various types, including 15 books. His writing is regularly cited as an authority in judicial decisions, and he has been cited in many Supreme Court of Canada judgments. He has been on academic fellowships or visitorships at a range of prestigious institutions, including Cambridge, Oxford, l’Université Laval, McGill, l’Université de Montréal, Princeton, the University of Toronto, and University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). He is a member of the bars of Ontario and Saskatchewan.
His initial studies were in his home province of Saskatchewan (BA in Economics at Regina and JD at Saskatchewan), and he completed three graduate degrees at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (BCL, MPhil, DPhil). He also completed two additional graduate degrees that deepen his interdisciplinary understandings and sense on the social place of law (MATS in History of Christianity and MSc in Finance and Financial Law).