Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A R C H 2 0 1 6 27 quipped, "Tell them I'll stick around until they're ready." After completing a BA in poli-sci and history at the University of Victoria in 1996, Wilson-Raybould followed in her father's footsteps to UBC's Peter A. Allard School of Law. "I learned amazing things when I was in law school, certainly, and I think have provided me with significant complement or background to my teachings as a young person and throughout the course of my life to bring me to where I am." After graduating in 1999 and being called to the bar in 2000, the sisters both headed for the Vancouver courthouse — Wilson- Raybould in the Crown's office while her sibling became a defence lawyer. "First off, you have to know your stuff inside and out," Kory Wilson recalls. "You have to be able to think on your feet quickly. You have to be able to think in a non-emotional, non-biased way. You have to be able to analyze or critique things very quickly and you have to be able to deal with all kinds of people." Her sister says, "I became a prosecutor because I really liked being in court and as a provincial Crown prosecutor I was in court almost every day. It gave me a large familiarity with the Criminal Code and the day to day realities of being a prosecutor." At first, Wilson-Raybould handled cases from petty theft to armed robbery, working her way up to having her own courtroom. It was also during that time she saw firsthand the impact of government budget cuts to victims services. "When I was a prosecutor, when I first started, we enjoyed the benefits of having a more robust victims services support but I found over time there were cutbacks to victims services." Working in the Downtown Eastside also shaped her perceptions of the relationship between Canada's indigenous peoples and the legal system. "I always knew that there was an overrepresentation of indigenous peoples and vulnerable people in the crimi- nal justice system but it became certainly more pronounced to me being down there for almost four years. It was a great experi- ence. It was an eye opening experience. It reconfirmed for me the commitment to public service and the importance of it." Vancouver defence lawyer Terry La Lib- erté says Wilson-Raybould quickly earned a reputation as someone who was smart, fair, and a skilled prosecutor. "Everybody who had dealings with her knew that she was a person of her word and had compassion — excellent trial skills, of course — but also compassion and knew what the real role of a prosecutor was," he says. "She has been here. She has actually talked to the people who are affected. She has worked with these people and made choices about their future in a really meaningful way." In 2003, Haida leader Miles Richardson, then chief commissioner for the B.C. Treaty Commission, wooed Wilson-Raybould away from the prosecutor's office to work with the commission, which oversees treaty negotiations across British Columbia. The B.C. Treaty Commission can be controversial in the province, explains Kory Wilson. "There are those people who are adamantly opposed to the treaty process and there are people who have embraced it so much so that they have created their own treaty. So there are all of these opposing views and they have to be balanced." Don Rusnak met Wilson-Raybould at the commission when he was a young law- yer eager to change the world quickly. What he learned from Wilson-Raybould was the importance of pragmatism and being able to bring people together. She had "excellent relationships with the federal negotiators, the provincial British Columbia negotia- tors, and First Nations negotiators," says Rusnak, who was elected for the federal Liberals in the riding of Thunder Bay-Rainy River last October. "She brought people together when I was there and taught me that that was extremely important — rela- tionships and bringing people together." It was during her years working with the commission that she met her husband Tim Raybould, a Cambridge-educated manage- ment and public policy consultant who works with First Nations. Together, they have run the KaLoNa Group, a consult- ing firm that does work for First Nations governments. "[She] and her husband are a very strong team," says Kory Wilson. "They work together very well. Tim is very much involved in a lot of the discussions and thinking of a better way and a better world, if you want to say, or a better Canada." In 2009, Wilson-Raybould followed her father into First Nations politics as a councillor for the We Wai Kai Nation and regional chief for the British Colum- bia Assembly of First Nations — the only woman among the regional chiefs. There, she focused on questions such as good governance, empowering First Nations to Jody Wilson-Raybould and sister Kory Wilson at ages 2 and 3 wearing hand-crocheted dresses from their grandmother. The two sisters in Italy during a back- packing trip in the early '90s. PHOTOS COURTESY KORY WILSON

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