Jean Teillet (LLM 2008): Longstanding advocate for Indigenous and women’s rights
When Jean Teillet (LLB 1994, LLM 2008) first graduated from the U of T Faculty of Law in 1994 there were few role models working in her fields of interest – reproductive law and Indigenous rights – so she forged her own path and became one of the role models others followed.
“At the time, reproductive rights and Indigenous rights were nascent fields, so you had to get out and practise and learn from doing,” says Teillet from her home in British Columbia. “U of T gave me a good grounding in law and I used that as a springboard.”
Teillet, who also earned an LLM degree from U of T in 2008, is a great grand-niece of Métis leader Louis Riel. Growing up in Manitoba, she grew up with debates about Métis issues, so it came as no surprise that Indigenous rights drew her interest as she pursued her legal studies.
She also took reproductive freedom to heart, volunteering in the Morgentaler clinic and becoming engaged in the issues that became another of her legal specialties. She worked on reproductive rights issues such as the IUD and midwifery throughout her career, even though her other work received more attention.
“Most people have no idea that I was involved in reproductive rights,” Teillet says, “but I helped the Association of Ontario Midwives negotiate their inclusion into the Ontario Regulated Health Professions and they’ve made me an honorary lifetime member – although I wouldn’t presume to deliver – the Midwives would say ‘catch’ – a baby!”
After graduating from the Faculty of Law, Teillet joined the firm Pape & Salter, which eventually became Pape Salter Teillet LLP. The firm had offices in both Toronto and Vancouver and was one of the few firms nationwide at the time working on Indigenous issues – largely First Nations cases. Teillet brought Métis clients to the firm and broadened its scope.
“I wanted to work on Métis issues and was one of the people who took the second Métis case in the nation,” she says. “My colleagues were working in First Nations issues and I brought Métis clients to the firm, because I knew people from that background.”
Teillet’s next case, R. v. Powley – grew out of an attempt by a pair of Sault Ste. Marie hunters to prove that they had an Aboriginal right to harvest moose under the Canadian Constitution. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Teillet and her colleagues were successful in affirming these harvesting rights. The case provided a set of criteria that defined what constitute a Métis right, and also who is entitled to those rights.
“This case established the legal recognition that the Métis were one of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada with all the attendant constitutional rights,” says Teillet. “It did change things.”
Teillet spent her legal career changing things even further, working, as her firm says, “with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples to secure a constitutional and legal space that protects their lands, identities, cultures, economies and self-government.” For three decades, she forged a national reputation as a champion of Indigenous rights, especially harvesting and land rights.
“For centuries, Canada has tried to ignore the idea that the country has pre-existing nations living within the state,” she says. “There was a lot of the European superiority complex and lots of [wilful] blindness.
“We’re not on that track anymore. Reconciliation is about trying to change that mindset, and the work has started,” Teillet adds. “Canadian society must change the way people think about the reality on the ground. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission isn’t a magic bullet, but anything that changes what people think about their own history and moves them toward fact and away from myth is good.”
“As Canadians, we like to think of ourselves as good, but we don’t necessarily have the nicest history. It’s better to acknowledge it, warts and all.”
Thanks to Teillet, some of those warts have been exposed and can now be treated. Her journey is one in which the U of T Faculty of Law was fortunate to play a small part.
Currently, Teillet serves as counsel emeritus for Pape Salter Teillet LLP and devotes much of her time to another passion, fabric arts. They have been a constant in her life for 40 years and a source of relief from the stress of a high-profile legal practice.
Her work includes the creation of replica wampum belts. One is a replica of the Two Row Wampum Belt, which is a symbol of two different peoples living together with different laws and customs within a relationship built on respect and truth; The Native Law Students Association (as it was then called) gifted Teillet’s replica Two Row Wampum Belt to the Faculty of Law in 1993. Fittingly, three of her other replica wampum belts were commissioned by the U of T Law and now reside in the Faculty’s art collection.