Indigenous course to be mandatory for Yukon lawyers

Lawyers practicing in Yukon will soon be required to learn about Indigenous history, culture and laws.

The Law Society of Yukon, the regulatory body for the territory's lawyers, says it will develop Indigenous cultural competency training which will be mandatory for all of the society's members.

"Cultural competency training is part of being a competent lawyer in the Yukon," said Meagan Lang, president of the society.

"And as a law society, one of our roles is to ensure that everyone who practices in the Yukon is competent, and that includes creating rules about what standards of competency are required."

The initiative was recommended by the society's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) advisory committee, in response to one of the calls to action included in the TRC's final report.

That report called for all law societies in Canada to ensure lawyers receive cultural competency training "which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law and Aboriginal-Crown relations."

Melissa Carlick, a Kwanlin Dün citizen who chairs the Yukon law society's TRC advisory committee, says the goal is to develop the training program within the next year. She sees it as a way to move forward with reconciliation.

"Theyll learn about the history of First Nations, they'll learn about the traditions and laws of Yukon First Nations people. That's going to be important and vital for people on an ongoing basis," she said.

Carlick said it's about ensuring that the history and experience of Indigenous people is better understood by all those who work within the territory's legal system.

"It's like making sure that lawyers that represent them understand the history of why this is the way it is, and how to help them just create a better future," she said.

Lang says the law society already requires members to pursue a certain amount of continuing education per year, but it does not mandate any particular courses. For example, many lawyers have taken Yukon University's First Nations 101 course, but it hasn't been a requirement.  

"So we want to really formalize some of that now, to make sure that we have cultural competency in place. But we have a lot of fundamentals already there," Lang said.

A similar initiative in Alberta, called The Path, was recently at risk. The Path is a free, five-hour online course that teaches Indigenous cultural competency, and all lawyers in the province were required to complete the Path by October 2022. 

Last month, the Law Society of Alberta held a meeting after it received a petition, signed by 50 lawyers, which proposed a resolution to get rid of a rule allowing the law society to mandate legal education. But a majority of the lawyers who logged onto the meeting voted to keep the rule. 

Lang doesn't expect to see the same sort of thing play out in Yukon.

"I believe [the training] will be welcomed by our local bar," Lang said.