LITIGATION + DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Environmental + Regulatory
MT+Co. assists clients in the areas of Aboriginal rights and title, governance, Indian reserve issues, impact-benefit agreement interpretation and implementation, regulatory matters, and the development of strategic approaches to the participation of First Nations in consultation and negotiation with the Crown and industry. Our experience in Indigenous Law includes working with Indigenous legal orders, oral traditional evidence, and traditional ecological knowledge.
Our Promises to You
Our Litigation + Dispute Resolution Group was formed out of a need we saw to advocate for our clients when negotiations failed, agreements dissolved, where just resolutions could only be reached through litigation, or where our clients had something we felt the courts needed to hear.
We have the unique privilege of straddling the various areas of practice, including the Indigenous Law Group. Unlike some other firms, where the Indigenous law and litigation groups are siloed from other aspects of the firm, at MT+Co. these groups represent the firm’s core practice areas. This means that we have the flexibility to structure our service offering in a way that aligns with the values of our Indigenous clients
Work Highlights
- British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, in its recent and successful application to obtain intervener status before the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Stewart v. Prince George (City), a Charter case involving encampments of unhoused persons and the interaction between city by-laws and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (“DRIPA”).
- British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, in providing strategic advice to Indigenous leadership and communities with respect to intervening before the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Gitxaala Nation v. Province of British Columbia et al., a judicial review with respect to seven mineral claims granted by the provincial government to third parties between 2018 and 2020 in Gitxaala territory without consultation of or consent from Gitxaala Nation.
- Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, in its successful application to obtain intervener status before the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), a groundbreaking Aboriginal rights case involving the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation’s right to fish commercially, in the appeal proceedings in Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2021 BCCA 155.
- Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, in the current intervention before the Court of Appeal for British Columbia in Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70, a Charter case involving the interplay between religious rights and Indigenous cultural representation and student safety in public schools.
- Squamish Nation, in its upcoming intervention in Greengen Holdings Ltd. v. British Columbia (Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations), a case involving a project proponent’s allegation that the Province of British Columbia committed misfeasance in public office when it rejected a proposed power project within Squamish Nation’s traditional territory in an effort to safeguard its relationship with Squamish Nation.
- Indigenous youth and family members across Canada, in related class actions, commenced in the Federal Court, against the Government of Canada for its discriminatory treatment of First Nations youth in Xavier Moushoom et al v. The Attorney General of Canada, FC File Nos. T-402-19/T-141-20 and Assembly of First Nations and Zacheus Joseph Trout v. The Attorney General of Canada, FC File No.T-1120-21 resulting in the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history ($40 billion).
- Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe, in its judicial reviews of the Crown’s successive approvals of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project in Tsleil-Waututh Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FCA 153, which resulted in the Federal Court of Appeal overturning the Crown’s approval of the pipeline project after finding that the Crown had failed to discharge its constitutional duty to consult the Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe.
- Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe, in Coldwater First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FCA 34, which included an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada where the nature of the argument was the creation of space for Indigenous law, (the application was later discontinued).
- Several Stó꞉lō communities, as interveners before the National Energy Board in its reconsideration hearing which resulted from the above-noted Federal Court of Appeal’s quashing of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project approval in Tsleil-Waututh Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FCA 153, including leading oral traditional evidence and evidence concerning traditional ecological knowledge.
What Our Clients Say
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Could use the quote module in Careers.
