Cree legal principles to resolving employment-related issues: An applied study for the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation

• Author / Creator

  Johnson, Johanne

• This thesis explores how employment-related issues within an Indigenous organization may be resolved by using principles sourced from the Cree legal tradition. This inquiry is informed by knowledge gathered from interviews completed with Aseniwuche Winewak Elders and knowledge keepers on their Nation’s foundational principles as well as supporting secondary documentation. The results of this research reveal that 1. Cree legal principles are understandable and may be congruent with legal principles found within Canadian employment law and, 2. Cree legal principles may better inform and guide the resolution of employment-related issues in the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation’s fully-owned and operated companies.
  The review of academic research on Indigenous law and governance highlights the lack of scholarship regarding practical applications of Indigenous law despite the richness and enduring relevance of these legal traditions and related governance. This thesis addresses this gap by contributing to the scholarship on practical applications of Cree law as it pertains to resolving employment-related issues within a contemporary Indigenous organizational context.
  
  The research was conducted using Nehiyawak Peoplehood methodology (Jobin, 2018), a Cree research approach which allows for the expression of Cree epistemology. This methodology is supported by a strategy of inquiry comprising diverse qualitative methods. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather Elders’ and knowledge keepers’ knowledge on the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation’s foundational principles. Other methods were drawn from the field of Indigenous law, namely the linguistic method, the community embedded/implicit law method and the story analysis method to develop a model and framework for resolving employment-related issues.
  After examining interview results, the Nation’s foundational principles are compared to those found in legal principles in Canadian employment law, highlighting how the two traditions’ inherent responsibilities and obligations may be congruent with each other. Finally, a model for resolving employment-related issues that applies Cree legal principles and reasoning to a hypothetical case study is presented and contrasted with a parallel application using principles from Canadian employment law. Hypothetical outcomes show that using Cree principles and related reasoning, when applied to resolving employment-related issues, may result in better outcomes for the employee, the organization and the community.
  The conclusion offers additional ideas for community-based research on Indigenous law with the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation, including the review, implementation and evaluation of the dispute resolution model within the workplace and/or within the Nation’s other governance institutions.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Indigenous organizations
  • human resources
  • Cree principles
  • Indigenous law
  • dispute resolution
  • Aseniwuche Winewak Nation

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-a0p2-wf35

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.