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Canadian lawyer
Peggy J. Blair is a Canadian lawyer and author. Blair has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1990 and is a past member of the Law Society of Alberta (1982–1999). Blair is considered an expert in Indigenous legal issues. After leaving active law practice, Blair has become a mystery writer.
In 1993, Blair was the lead counsel in R. v. Jones and Nadjiwon, the first Canadian case to recognize Indigenous persons' treaty rights to fish commercially in priority to other users.[1] As a result of the backlash which followed, which included Indigenous-owned boats being set on fire, protest marches and a stabbing/swarming incident in Owen Sound, in 1993 she attended Harvard University to train in Negotiation Skills. An expert in Aboriginal cross-cultural negotiations,[2] in 2001 Blair was then involved in multi-party negotiations to resolve the issues around the fisheries, which ultimately resulted in a co-management agreement between the First Nations and the governments of Canada and Ontario,[3] involving all aspects of Great Lakes fisheries management.[4]
Blair worked for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples as a policy adviser on land claims and dispute resolution issues.[5] From 1993 to 1999, Blair was appointed as a part-time member with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal where she conducted hearings across Canada into allegations of discrimination.[6] From 1997 to 1998, she was the Chief Federal Negotiator in self-government negotiations involving 27 communities in northern Ontario. She worked on a number of Indian Claims Commission reports. In 2003, Blair was selected by a multi-stakeholder panel as a Senior Adjudicator for the Indian Residential Schools claims dispute resolution process, hearing claims of sexual and physical abuse across Canada.
Blair has been widely cited by notable Canadian scholars such as Dr. John Borrows, Douglas Harris, Kent MacNeil, and Mark Walters, as well as others, for her legal analysis of Aboriginal hunting and fishing issues.[7] Blair has been regularly named by Lexpert as one of Canada's leading lawyers in her field since 1996.[8] and is a regular speaker and commentator at conferences and in the media on Aboriginal issues and negotiations. She is currently listed in Canada's Who's Who as well as Lexpert.[citation needed]
In December 2004, Dr. Blair traveled to Ukraine as an election observer during the presidential elections as part of the Canada Corps.[9]
Author
Blair left law in 2010 to become a realtor and mystery author in Ottawa. Her debut novel, The Beggar's Opera, was rejected 156 times before it was short-listed for a Debut Dagger Award by the UK Crime Writers' Association in 2010 and picked up by Penguin Canada in a two-book deal. It was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in Canada and won the Giller Prize Readers' Choice Award in 2012. It has since been published in the UK (Midnight in Havana, Polygon), the US (The Beggar's Opera, Pintail), Norway (TiggerDramaet, Cappelen Damm), Germany (Die Geister von Havanna, Rowholt), Holland (Schaduwzijde, Unieboek), and the Czech Republic and will soon be published in Israel.
Blair's second book in the Inspector Ramirez series, The Poisoned Pawn, has also been critically acclaimed. Her third book, Hungry Ghosts, was released by Simon and Schuster Canada in June, 2015 and hit The Globe and Mail bestsellers list; the fourth in the Inspector Ramirez series, Umbrella Man, was published in 2016. In 2017, Umbrella Man was nominated for the Ottawa Book Award.
Blair has published widely on Indigenous issues concerning resource use and governance,[10] on the rights of Aboriginal women [11] and on Aboriginal culture.[12] Her book, Lament for a First Nation, is highly critical of the Howard decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which removed the rights to hunt and fish of the seven Williams Treaties First Nations in Southern Ontario. It was published in May, 2008 by the University of Washington and UBC Press.
Works
Non-fiction
Lament for a First Nation: the Williams Treaties of Southern Ontario. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. 2008. ISBN9780774815130.
The Ojibwe are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and throughout the northeastern woodlands. Ojibweg, being Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and of the subarctic, are known by several names, including Ojibway or Chippewa. As a large ethnic group, several distinct nations also understand themselves to be Ojibwe as well, including the Saulteaux, Nipissings, and Oji-Cree.
In Canada, an Indian reserve is defined by the Indian Act as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Reserves are areas set aside for First Nations, one of the major groupings of Indigenous peoples in Canada, after a contract with the Canadian state, and are not to be confused with Indigenous peoples' claims to ancestral lands under Aboriginal title.
The Odawa are an Indigenous American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Their territory long preceded the creation of the current border between the two countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Bruce Peninsula is a peninsula in Ontario, Canada, that divides Georgian Bay of Lake Huron from the lake's main basin. The peninsula extends roughly northwestwards from the rest of Southwestern Ontario, pointing towards Manitoulin Island, with which it forms the widest strait joining Georgian Bay to the rest of Lake Huron. The Bruce Peninsula contains part of the geological formation known as the Niagara Escarpment. The entire peninsula and nearby communities to the south along Lake Huron are located within Bruce County, Ontario.
Fathom Five National Marine Park is a National Marine Conservation Area in the Georgian Bay part of Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada, that seeks to protect and display shipwrecks and lighthouses, and conserve freshwater ecosystems. Parks Canada has management plans for the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, with a multi-action plan for species that are at risk, including endemic species, the Monarch butterfly, the eastern ribbonsnake, and the eastern whip-poor-will. The aquatic ecosystems in the park are also of particular interest. Many fish, shellfish, amphibians, and eels are an attraction for naturalists in the park. Much of this wildlife is accessible to scuba divers and snorkellers in the park. The many shipwrecks make the park a popular scuba diving destination, and glass bottom boat tours leave Tobermory regularly, allowing tourists to see the shipwrecks without having to get wet. Additionally, there are three main popular hiking trails found within Fathom Five National Marine Park that provides visitors with views of old growth forests and the Georgian Bay. The Saugeen Ojibway Peoples have inhabited the Bruce Peninsula and the area that is now Fathom Five National Marine Park for thousands of years. This land provided for their communities and their people with the plethora of wildlife and plant life. They provide the local knowledge about Lake Huron and its ecological value to the reserve, park, and their overall livelihood. Parks Canada and Saugeen Ojibway People's collaboration is said to yield a benefit to both parties with regard to overall ecosystem knowledge.
Saugeen First Nation is an Ojibway First Nation band located along the Saugeen River and Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada. The band states that their legal name is the "Chippewas of Saugeen". Organized in the mid-1970s, Saugeen First Nation is the primary "political successor apparent" to the Chippewas of Saugeen Ojibway Territory; the other First Nation that is a part of Chippewas of Saugeen Ojibway Territory is Cape Croker. The Ojibway are of the Algonquian languages family. The First Nation consist of four reserves: Chief's Point 28, Saugeen 29, Saugeen Hunting Grounds 60A, and Saugeen and Cape Croker Fishing Islands 1.
The Wiikwemkong First Nation is a First Nation on Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario. The Wiikwemkong Unceded Territory is the First Nation reserve in the northeast of Manitoulin Island in Manitoulin District, Ontario, Canada. Wiikwemkong is an unceded Indigenous reserve in Canada, which means that it has not "relinquished title to its land to the government by treaty or otherwise."
Treaty 3 was an agreement entered into on October 3, 1873, by Chief Mikiseesis on behalf of the Ojibwe First Nations and Queen Victoria. The treaty involved a vast tract of Ojibwe territory, including large parts of what is now northwestern Ontario and a small part of eastern Manitoba, to the Government of Canada. Treaty 3 also provided for rights for the Waasaakode Anishinaabe and other Ojibwe, through a series of agreements signed over the next year. The treaty was modified in 1875 when Nicolas Chatelain negotiated an adhesion that created a reserve, surveyed as reserve 16A, for Metis families connected to Mikiseesis' Rainy Lake Band. Reserve 16A and the Rainy Lake Band reserve were unified in 1967.
The Anisininew or Oji-Cree are a First Nation in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, residing in a band extending from the Missinaibi River region in Northeastern Ontario at the east to Lake Winnipeg at the west.
The Robinson Treaties are two treaties signed between the Ojibwa chiefs and the Crown in 1850 in the Province of Canada. The first treaty involved Ojibwa chiefs along the north shore of Lake Superior, and is known as the Robinson Superior Treaty. The second treaty, signed two days later, included Ojibwa chiefs from along the eastern and northern shores of Lake Huron, and is known as the Robinson Huron Treaty. The Wiikwemkoong First Nation did not sign either treaty, and their land is considered "unceded".
The Saugeen Ojibway Nation Territory, also known as Saugeen Ojibway Nation, SON and the Chippewas of Saugeen Ojibway Territory, is the name applied to Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation and Saugeen First Nation as a collective, represented by a joint council. The collective First Nations are Ojibway (Anishinaabe) peoples located on the eastern shores of Lake Huron on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada. Though predominantly Ojibway, due to large influx of refugees from the south and west after the War of 1812, the descendants of the Chippewas of Saugeen Ojibway Territory also have ancestry traced to Odawa and Potawatomi peoples.
Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation is an Anishinaabek First Nation from the Bruce Peninsula region in Ontario, Canada. Along with the Saugeen First Nation, they form the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. The Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation had a registered membership of 2758 individuals, as of December 2020. Approximately 700 members live on the main reserve, Neyaashiinigmiing 27. The First Nation has 3 reserves, Neyaashiinigmiing 27, Cape Croker Hunting Ground 60B and Saugeen and Cape Croker Fishing Islands 1. The size of all reserves is 8083.70 hectares.
Charles Rankin, was an early Irish-born and Scottish-descended settler and land surveyor in Upper Canada. He is significant due to his role in the surveying and early settlement of large areas of Upper Canada, including much of the Bruce Peninsula and south shore of Lake Huron, and notably the city of Owen Sound. Born in 1797 at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland, he died in either 1886 or 1888 in Owen Sound, a city whose founding he had been instrumental in.
Basil H. Johnston was an Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) and Canadian writer, storyteller, language teacher and scholar.
Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is an Anishinaabe writer of mixed ancestry from the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation in Canada. She lives and works at Neyaashiinigmiing, Cape Croker Reserve on the Saugeen Peninsula in southwestern Ontario, and in Ottawa, Ontario.
Calvin Murray Sinclair is a former member of the Canadian Senate and First Nations lawyer who served as chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. He previously served as a judge in Manitoba from 1988 to 2009, being the first Indigenous judge appointed in the province. Sinclair was appointed to the Senate of Canada on April 2, 2016. In November 2020, he announced his retirement from the Senate effective January 31, 2021.
Saugeen may refer to the following in Ontario, Canada:
The Batchewana First Nation is an Ojibway First Nation in northern Ontario. Their traditional lands run along the eastern shore of Lake Superior, from Batchawana Bay to Whitefish Island. They were reserved this land in the 1850 Robinson Huron Treaty, but surrendered most of it under the 1859 Pennefather Treaty. Through purchase and land claims, it has reclaimed some territories, including Goulais Bay 15A, Obadjiwan 15E, Rankin Location 15D and Whitefish Island.
Michelle LaVallee is a Canadian curator, artist, and educator. She is Ojibway and a member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation in Cape Croker, Ontario. She has BFA (2000) and BEd (2004) degrees from York University in Toronto.
Saugeen and Cape Croker Fishing Islands 1 is a First Nations reserve consisting of 89 islands in Lake Huron off the western coast of the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. They extend north of Chief's Point 28 for 11 miles (18 km) up to Pike Bay. These islands are shared between the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation and Saugeen First Nation.
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