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fi rst time in her career. She began reading the old Indian Acts and learning about the interference the government has asserted over an entire people with justifi cations that Johnson says weren't very compelling. "I would say law is very colonial in the way it is designed and taught. For those of us that go through law and become law pro- fessors, we're in the same dilemma everyone else is; we tend to rep- licate what we inherited," Johnson says. " e challenge is we have to disrupt what we were taught in order to replicate something diff erent. It's not helpful, particularly, to focus on people's good in- tentions because I think people for the most part have good inten- tions, but so what? e system will replicate itself without us taking steps to disrupt what we know." Call to Action #28 "Well, it's a pretty tall order, it covers a lot of ground," says the Uni- versity of Saskatchewan's interim dean of the College of Law, Beth Bilson, about the Call to Action #28. "I think this law school and a lot of other law schools have, over time, incorporated a lot of class- es in aboriginal law and have tried to increase the level of inter- cultural understanding among their students and faculty." In 1975, Dr. Roger Carter founded the Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan to help aboriginal people prepare for a career in law. e centre started out as an independent special project within the university, eventually becoming a department within the College of Law in 1984. Earlier this year, the College of Law released a statement out- lining its formal endorsement and response plans to the Calls to Action. " e Calls to Action have prompted us to consider again whether our eff orts have been adequate, and the emphasis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on reconciliation has refo- cused our discussion." In February, the faculty council adopted a proposal for the for- mat and content of a class entitled Aboriginal People and the law that will try to incorporate some of the things listed in the calls to action. e fi rst-year law class will be off ered no later than Septem- ber 2017. " e major elements of it would be some kind of introduction to indigenous legal traditions, some kind of historical piece about the legacy of colonialism, and residential schools," says Bilson. " e decision hasn't yet been made about whether to include in that course the property component that has until now been in the property course." She says the faculty is very much in support of this and is making an eff ort to ensure the class has the same kind of weight as other fi rst-year classes. e college also hired an indigenous adviser to assist in developing an understanding in cultural protocols. "I think the challenge of getting non-aboriginal law students to appreciate the importance of understanding indigenous perspec- tives, and understanding they are part of the fabric of the Canadian legal [system] is really a challenge. It's something we are starting to work on," says Bilson. "We're starting to make a more systematic eff ort to identify what kind of barriers there are to that and how you introduce students to those ideas." Its one thing to off er and teach a class about indigenous legal history, but getting students to take the class is a challenge, accord- ing to Bilson. "Most law students are fairly career oriented, they are looking forward to working in the legal profession, and they start to de- fi ne things as some things being more important than others fairly early in their legal studies," says Bilson. " ey sometimes sort of denigrate certain kinds of courses because they think they are not helpful with their career aspirations. So, if they have their heart set on being a commercial lawyer, they tend to say, 'I don't need to know anything about human rights because I'm going to be a com- mercial lawyer.'" A DISPLAY AT THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA IN WINNIPEG 56 AUGUST 2016 C A N A D I A N L a w y e r 4STUDENTS

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