Thread by @Heidi__Matthews

*thread*

Congratulations to my old @LawMcGill dean, Nicholas Kasirer, on his nomination to the #SupremeCourt. I am confident he will be a compassionate, discerning & rigorous justice.

That being said...

#SCC #cdnpoli

https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1149050267134046208

@LawMcGill Let's meditate for a moment on the colonial structure of the Court, which is concerned with representation insofar as it aims at equity between Canada's two founding colonial powers, languages and legal traditions:

@LawMcGill The Supreme Court Act requires that 3/9 justices come from Québec. The official languages of the Court are English and French, and all justices are required to be functionally bilingual in both of Canada's colonial languages.

@LawMcGill Ironically (?), the requirement that all Supreme Court nominees be functionally bilingual was introduced by the Trudeau government in 2016, after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action were released in 2015.

@LawMcGill This requirement prevented Canada's *first and only* Indigenous appellate judge, Harry LaForme, from applying to the Supreme Court: theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…

@LawMcGill The appointment of Kasirer is the third Supreme Court appointment since the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Canada's residential school system amounted to cultural genocide against its Indigenous peoples. #TRC #genocide

@LawMcGill And it is the first Supreme Court appointment since the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found reason to believe that Canada is responsible for genocide against its Indigenous peoples. #MMIWG

@LawMcGill The #MMIWG report's Calls to Justice specifically called "upon federal, provincial, and territorial governments to increase Indigenous
representation in all Canadian courts, including within the Supreme Court of Canada."

@LawMcGill Even on the most charitable reading of Canada's settler colonial foundation, Indigenous peoples were parties to the creation of Canadian sovereignty. In 2019, after the TRC & #MMIWG, a Supreme Court that shuts out Indigenous membership is not, in my opinion, a legitimate court.