Lawyers, academins and students attending the

Lawyers, academins and students attending the Indigenous Bar Association meeting in Toronto have embraced their responsibility to help implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. The focus of the IBA’s 27th annual fall conference is the commission’s Calls to Action and it heard from commissioners Justice Murray Sinclair and Chief Wilton Littlechild. Workshops were held that considered the Calls to Action in the contexts of legal education, judicial training, child welfare, film and media, and missing women and girls. “Based on direction from the members of the IBA and the fact that there are specific Calls to Action that requires our leadership, we will be seeking partnerships and cooperative approaches with various legal institutions such as law societies, law schools and judicial training bodies to implement specific Calls to Action,” said IBA Board member Scott Robertson. Among the Calls to Action is the identification of the importance of knowledge and education regarding the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, treaties, Aboriginal rights, Indigenous laws, and Aboriginal-Crown relations. According to President Koren Lightning-Earle, the information will help the effectiveness of the legal profession to serve Indigenous clients and for the Administration of Justice to deliver justice to Indigenous peoples.