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VOL. 79 PART 1 JANUARY 2021
His research and experience align with his priorities as the new president
of UVic, including:
• truth, respect and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples;
• equity, diversity, inclusion and access to education;
• environmental sustainability;
• excellence in research, scholarship, creative activity and teaching;
• student support and wellness; and
• strong partnerships and community connections.
John Borrows has been honoured with a Governor General’s Innovation
Award for his work on reconciliation and Indigenous law. Through teaching,
research, writing and numerous applied projects, Dr. Borrows has
helped transform Canada’s understanding of how Indigenous and non-
Indigenous law can co-exist harmoniously.
Deborah Curran, associate professor in the School of Environmental
Studies and the Faculty of Law, received a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant
(COVID-19 Special Initiative) with Professor Estair Van Wagner of York University
and Professor Alexandra Flynn of UBC. This academic team brings
together leading municipal law scholars in Canada, and they are working
with community partners The Shift (a global movement to secure the right
to housing) and others to develop an implementation strategy for
the National Protocol on Homeless Encampments in Canada developed by coapplicants
and collaborator organizations. The purpose of the research is to
gain a clearer understanding of how Canadian governments have
responded to homeless encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic and
of whether and how they are fulfilling their human rights obligations under
Canadian and international human rights law.
Supriya Routh received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for his
research proposal “Regulating Sustainable Development in Canada: Exploring
Spaces of Non-Hegemonic Legal Imagination” in collaboration with UVic
professor Alan Hanna. This research aims at addressing the disconnect
between the rationale of extractive economic growth and the aspiration of
sustainability of nature by questioning the predominant legal narrative on
sustainability, which is based solely on the logic of market capitalism.
Finally, three of our Ph.D. students working in the field of law and society
are recent SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship recipients:
• Lana Lowe (2020–21, Year 4 Ph.D.) – “Dechinta Nats’edeh /
Witaskewin / Living on the Land: Revitalizing Indigenous Law and
Environmental Governance in Denendeh” – $40,000.