Brandon Montour

SJD Candidate
Thesis title:
Duty to Council: Haudenosaunee Law as a Framework for Colonial Relations under the Covenant Chain
Office in Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Toronto, M5S 2C5
Tel:
(514) 895-2726
Email: brandon.montour@mail.utoronto.ca

Brandon is Kanien’kehá:ka and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke. Before joining the S.J.D program in 2024, he completed his Master of Laws (LL.M) at the University of Toronto, for which he was awarded a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. His thesis, supervised by John Borrows, argued for the resurgence and contemporary application of Haudenosaunee legal principles within existing governing structures in Kahnawà:ke. Building upon his LL.M research, Brandon's doctoral research will focus on the role that the resurgence of Haudenosaunee law can play in advancing reconciliation with the State. 

Brandon has experience as a consultant and advisor in both the private and public sectors. As a summer student at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto, he assisted the litigation team with a historic class proceeding that resulted in an $8 billion settlement to address water infrastructure issues and long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves. Brandon has also worked in the Office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations as a Legal Affairs Advisor to the Honorable Gary Anandasangaree. In his community of Kahnawà:ke, Brandon was unanimously appointed by the elected Chiefs of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke to serve as Chairperson of the Kahnawà:ke Cannabis Control Board, a regulatory board for the purpose of regulating, enforcing, and administering Kahnawà:ke's sovereign and independently-enacted Cannabis Control Law. 

Education
LL.M (Long Thesis), University of Toronto (2024)
J.D / B.C.L, McGill University (2023)
B.A (Political Science) with Great Distinction, Concordia University (2020)
Awards and Distinctions
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master's (U of T, 2024)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Indigenous Scholars Award (U of T, 2024)
June Callwood Program in Aboriginal Law (U of T, 2023-2024)
Gualtieri-Doran Award (McGill, 2023)
Bank of Canada Scholarship Award (McGill, 2022-2023)
Robert L. Katz and Christina H. Otto Entrance Scholarship (McGill, 2020)
Other information

Presentations, Lectures, and Workshops 

Conversations and Solutions Surrounding National and Global Challenges, 17th Annual Graduate Legal Studies Association Conference, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, 29 May 2024.
Presentation: LL.M Thesis, Resurging to Reconcile: Peacemaking in Kahnawà:ke through Haudenosaunee Law.

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP Student Research Conference, Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law, Montreal, Quebec, 18 March 2024.
Presentation: LL.M Thesis, Resurging to Reconcile: Peacemaking in Kahnawà:ke through Haudenosaunee Law.

United Nations, 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Quebec, 7-19 December 2022.
Delegate, Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

United Nations, 27th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 6-18 November 2022.
Delegate and Panelist, Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Selected Publications

“The Aboriginal Right of Self-Government in the Era of the Indigenous Child Welfare Act” (2024) 18:1 Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 105.

Research Interests
Aboriginal Law
Canadian Constitutional Law
Critical Legal Theory
Indigenous Legal Traditions
Legal History
Supervisor
John Borrows
Committee Members
Douglas Sanderson

Faculty Colloquium: Annelise Riles

Faculty Colloquium

Presents:

Annelise Riles
Northwestern University

Zombie Wilderness: Field Guide for a World Without a Centre

Thursday September 7, 2023
12:30pm – 2pm
Falconer Hall, 84 Queens Park
Room: Michael J. Trebilcock Solarium FH103 / FA2 

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop

Presents:

Martti Koskenniemi
University of Helsinki

Rights and the Bourgeois Revolution

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop

Presents:

Adrienne D. Davis
Washington University in St. Louis

Combatting Campus Sexual Assault through a Jurisprudence of BDSM

Yukiko Kobayashi Lui

Yukiko, wearing a grey sweater, smiles in a photograph taken in the Jackman Law Building
SJD Candidate
Thesis title:
Dependence and redistribution in family life/law
Office in Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Toronto, M5S 2C5
Email: y.kobayashilui@mail.utoronto.ca

I am a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law with a collaborative specialization in sexual diversity studies at the Mark S. Bonham Centre. I also teach at the Women and Gender Studies Institute.

My research interests are in family law, poverty law, feminisms, and critical legal theories. My doctoral project is about the law and politics of relationship recognition in the context of Ontario's welfare state. I am interested in how law and social assistance policy constitute and reproduce the borders of 'the family', paying attention to how material conditions affect the choices people have about their relational lives and how they do socially reproductive work for themselves and others.

Prior to commencing my doctoral studies, I worked in the non-profit sector and in publishing. 

Education
LLM (Distinction), The University of Hong Kong
BA (Hons) in Law, University of Cambridge
Awards and Distinctions
Mary H. Beatty Fellowship (2024-2025)
Centre for Ethics Doctoral Fellowship (Returning) (2024-2025)
David Rayside Graduate Students Award (2024)
Centre for Ethics Doctoral Fellowship (2023-2024)
Mary H. Beatty Fellowship (2023-2024)
Graduate Fellowship in Women's Rights (2022-2024)
Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence (2015-2018)
Other information

Co-organizer, Feminist Legal Theory and the Family conference, hosted at the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, Osgoode Hall Law School (May 2024)

Organizing committee, Sex Salon speaker series, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (2023-2024)

Co-organizer, Toronto Law and Political Economy Reading Group (Spring 2023)

Organizer, SJD works-in-progress group (Fall 2022-Fall 2024)

Research Interests
Administrative Law
Comparative Law
Critical Legal Theory
Family Law
Feminist Analysis of Law
Labour Law
Political Philosophy and Theory
Sexuality and the Law
Supervisor
Brenda Cossman
Committee Members
Kerry Rittich
Linda White (Department of Political Science)

The Boushie/Baptiste Family's Complaint Against the RCMP

Kent Roach
Monday, May 3, 2021

 Originally published on April 6, 2021 in Policy Options

The under-resourced Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP did a valiant job in substantiating the discriminatory treatment of a Cree mother grieving the killing of her son. In its <a href="https://www.crcc-ccetp.gc.ca/en/commissions-final-report-cic-pii-ColtenB..." and interim reports, the commission also raised a number of questions about how the investigation into 22-year-old Colten Boushie’s death was handled by police.

Still, the commission’s recommendations for improvements, including for cultural awareness training of officers, were not terribly ambitious. Indeed, the RCMP in Saskatchewan was able <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/news/2021/saskatchewan-rcmp-commits-implem...">quickly to respond</a> that all of its recommendations would soon be implemented.

Much more reform of the RCMP is, however, required to improve its relations with Indigenous peoples and respond to systemic discrimination against them. These reforms need to go far beyond cultural awareness. They should attempt to change the very culture and governance of the RCMP.

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop: Mikhail Xifaras

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop

Presents:

Mikhail Xifaras
 Sciences Po Law School, Paris

The Theory of Legal Characters

Thursday February 25, 2021
4:10pm - 6pm
Zoom Meeting

Pages