Grandmothers often play the role of guide and nurturer in their families. Val Napoleon is a grandmother to four children, but her role as a guide goes far beyond her own family.\u00a0 Napoleon is a professor at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law and the Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance, whose vision of Canadian and Indigenous laws operating alongside one another is reshaping the legal landscape.<\/p>\n
It was only after the birth of her first grandchild that Napoleon decided it was time to get her law degree. In her twenties, she was accepted to law school but decided not to go. Instead, she worked in education and social services, had children and raised a family. As Napoleon got older, she noticed how women tend to become marginalized as they age, effectively disappearing in the public realm. There was still much she wanted to do in the world and arming herself with a law degree was a way to keep from being ignored.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA law degree is like a driver\u2019s license. It\u2019s a useful way of getting about in the world,\u201d says Napoleon, who has gone on to become a leading force in reshaping Canadian legal frameworks. Napoleon is Cree from Saulteau First Nation (BC Treaty 8) and an adopted member of the Gitanyow (northern Gitxsan). While both communities are in northern British Columbia, Napoleon\u2019s impact has been national. After graduating with a PhD from the University of Victoria Law program, Napoleon found herself more interested in research and theory than the practice of law. She co-founded the Indigenous Law Research Unit (ILRU), an independent research unit at the University of Victoria dedicated to the revitalization and implementation of Indigenous law and governance. The research approach at ILRU is relationship-based; they work with communities to develop practical legal and educational resources that make Indigenous laws more accessible and easier to apply to current issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Napoleon\u2019s transformative approach to law did not stop there. She co-founded the world\u2019s first and only joint degree program in Indigenous law and Canadian common law, where student training includes field schools with Indigenous communities and learning from Coast Salish, Cree and other Indigenous legal orders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Last year, Napoleon celebrated the opening of the University of Victoria\u2019s new Indigenous Law Wing. This year, it is Napoleon herself who is being celebrated. Napoleon was one of just five Canadian researchers to receive the 2026 Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation Fellow<\/a> award. The fellowship supports Napoleon\u2019s latest project, Next Steps: Rebuilding Indigenous Law<\/a>, dedicated to Indigenous law revitalization and rebuilding Indigenous legal orders across Canada.<\/p>\n Napoleon\u2019s approach reflects her belief that law is broader than most people realize. \u201cIt\u2019s one way of understanding what\u2019s going on in the world around us,\u201d Napoleon explains, encompassing not just governance but also how our economies and social relationships function. Napoleon sees a troubling trend impacting democracies around the world where civil society structures are eroding and people no longer feel laws are relevant to them. She points to the anti-government Freedom Convoy protests in 2022 as an example. In Indigenous communities, colonization created a void as traditional governance systems were dismantled. Poverty, addiction, land theft and power imbalances have further exacerbated the challenges facing communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe work of every generation is to draw the law from the previous generation for today\u2019s problems, so law is never static,\u201d Napoleon explains. \u201c[It] is ultimately about rebuilding our citizenry.\u201d This, Napoleon believes, is work every Canadian should be doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n A recent gathering in Alberta exemplifies her process. Napoleon brought together twenty women working to address gender violence in their communities. The mood of the meeting was celebratory, providing a chance to recognize their often unseen work, even though the topic uniting them was painful. \u201cWhat we\u2019re hoping to be able to do is to find ways for women, gender-diverse and trans [people], to draw on Indigenous law to build places of safety in our communities,\u201d says Napoleon.\u00a0<\/p>\n The gatherings focus on sharing oral histories and stories from the women\u2019s home communities. They then follow a method for working with law that Napoleon has practiced with communities across the country to address a range of contemporary challenges. \u201cWe draw the law from those stories in a systematic and critical way, and then we synthesize it to actually create a resource of legal principles and processes and precedent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Stories and oral narratives contain numerous teachings that can be set in different contexts to understand legal rules and principles. The principles drawn from the stories provide a framework \u2014 including who has authority to address acts of violence and what responses are appropriate \u2014 for addressing gender violence now and in the future.<\/p>\n Napoleon\u2019s approach offers a way for Indigenous communities to draw on their own legal histories and relationships to address today\u2019s challenges in a way that builds on traditional culture and knowledge systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reflecting back to her younger years, Napoleon remembers how her contributions, and those of other teens, were received. \u201cThere was no differentiation because we were younger,\u201d she says, \u201cnobody told us we couldn\u2019t do anything or that our work was somehow limited by our age.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Thinking of her own grandchildren, Napoleon believes today\u2019s youngest generations need to be supported, especially given the problems they are inheriting from older generations. But she is optimistic about their potential. \u201cI think that the newer generations are going to be creative and innovative in a way that we don\u2019t yet know.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Shauna MacKinnon\u00a0is a freelance writer from Vancouver. Her writing blends science and data with on-the-ground human stories. Follow her on Substack at\u00a0Climate Connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grandmothers often play the role of guide and nurturer in their families. 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