Designing a Métis Judicial Body from the Ground Up

System Design

Developmental Evaluation · Organizational Design ·
M Poitras Ethics, Law and Design for Métis Nation, Saskatchewan

Canada's courts were not built on Indigenous values, traditions, or languages. After resolutions, self-government agreements, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established both the right and the necessity, the Métis Nation, Saskatchewan set out to design such a body from scratch, with the full weight of community and future generations' expectations behind it.

Invited by Marilyn Poitras of M Poitras Ethics, Law and Design, I, as a non-Indigenous practitioner, understood my role as one of support and service to the design team, embedding a developmental learning approach into the design thinking process.

Over the two years of this project my role shifted fluidly depending on what the work needed. I helped clarify and articulate the grounding principles and values that we would hold our design thinking process accountable to as we developed the system design. I partnered with Marilyn in leading sensemaking, design, and prototype showcase sessions. I led participatory debriefing practices, held different perspectives to the light, and helped surface the most promising paths forward at key developmental moments. I developed the evaluation and learning strategy, building tools, instruments, and feedback loops in step with the initiative's activities to ensure relevant learning could be integrated. As a trusted friend to the process, I encouraged the team to think critically and creatively, returned us to the principles, named trends, patterns, and developmental moments as they emerged, and supported the team in moving through their implications as the design emerged. The work was relational and iterative throughout, proceeding at the pace of the community's trust, adapting approach, inquiry, and definitions of success at each turn.

A model for a Métis judicial body, Kwayaskastasowin, now serves as the touchstone for implementation and piloting, alongside legislation, resourcing, and pilot phase evaluation recommendations, and a demonstrated methodology for building something genuinely unprecedented with community voice at the center.