What can we do to ensure First Nations gain access to safe drinking water and wastewater systems? Check out “Ohné:kanos Right or Privilege?” on February 11 at 1:00 pm in the Queen’s Law building, room 001.
What can we do to ensure First Nations gain access to safe drinking water and wastewater systems? Check out “Ohné:kanos Right or Privilege?” on February 11 at 1:00 pm in the Queen’s Law building, room 001.

Should water be a right for all, or a privilege for the few? What can each of us do to ensure First Nations gain access to safe drinking water and wastewater systems? On February 11, LEVEL – Queen’s Law Chapter invites students and faculty to engage on these important questions. 

The student-run club will host “Ohné:kanos Right or Privilege?” – an event organized to discuss the benefits and challenges associated with securing drinking water and wastewater system access for Indigenous communities.

Confirmed speakers for the event include:

  • R. Donald Maracle, Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte; 
  • Teala Nadjiwon, an activist, UN speaker and Director of Human Services for the Batchewana First Nation; 
  • Hugh Adsett, Law’93, an international lawyer and legal adviser to Global Affairs Canada, and a Queen’s Law sessional instructor who teaches International Environmental & Resource Law and Advanced Issues in International Law; and
  • Hugo Choquette, Law’05, LLM’10, PhD’17, a Queen’s Law sessional instructor who teaches Aboriginal Law in the JD program and Introduction to Legal Skills & Aboriginal Law in the undergraduate Certificate in Law program.

Adsett will also moderate the panel for this LEVEL event. 

Formed with the goal of affecting positive social change, LEVEL is a charitable organization focused on uniting individuals, the law and education to enhance global access to justice for marginalized populations.

Noor Ul Ain Sohail and Stacia Loft, both Law’20, serve as co-presidents of LEVEL – Queen’s Law Chapter. By providing students with an opportunity to engage and learn from community members, advocates, practitioners and academics, they hope to better promote environmental justice at Queen’s.

“We seek to critically deconstruct the power structures that create and distribute environmental harm to specific communities,” explains Sohail. “We must all understand the urgency of issues like ‘lack of safe drinking water’ as they not only disproportionately affect Indigenous communities, but they touch on all parts of Canadian law.”

The panel will take place at 1:00 pm in the Queen’s Law building, room 001. Light refreshments will be served.

By Justin Murphy