Rooms with 'Traditional Views': Justice L'Heureux-Dube and the Expansion of Interpretative Principles Related to Equality in the Context of Indigenous Rights

• Author: Tracey Lindberg
• Pages: 367-377

Nineteen

Rooms

with

"Traditional

Views":

Justice L'Heureux-Dube

and the

Expansion

of

Interpretative Principles Related

to

Equality

in the

Context

of

Indigenous Rights

TRACEY LINDBERG

It

may

surprise

you to

know that

I

prepared

for

this discussion

by

looking

for

words

in my

language that have relevance

to the

discussion taking place today.

After

I did

that,

and

thought

for

quite some time,

I

looked

at

what other peo-

ple

said

about

those words,

and

then examined

the

things people said about

Justice

L'Heureux-Dube

and her

work

and

philosophies.

It may

also surprise

you to

know that only then

did I

review

the

case

law

that

I

thought important

to

this

discussion.

The

reason

why the

case

law is the

last

stop

on

this

journey

is

that

it is the

least relevant,

the

least

reflective

of

Indigenous understandings,

and the

least

accessible portion

of the

discussion related

to

"law"

for

many

Indigenous

people.

For

many

of us in our

societies,

to

make sense

of

Canadian society,

we

need

an

interpreter.

We

need someone

to

interpret

Canadian systems,

laws,

and

principles. This

is

because

the

assumptions that

you

make,

the

understandings that

you

possess,

and the

knowledge that

you

impute into your

own

interpretative skills

are

informed

by the

place that

you

come

from.

For

these

to

make sense, they must

be

interpreted

in a way

that

is

meaningful

to the

communities

to

whom they

are

presumed

to

apply.

The

first

reason

the

interpretative exercise

is

important

is

that

the

assumptions

that underlie

the

laws, understandings,

and

judicial decisions

of

the

Canadian judicial system

are

those best understood

and

presumed

accurate

by

individuals

who

resemble

the

decision-makers. Comparing

the

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