Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan
Jul 30, 2026 · 21 min · 6 segments
One word can change everything when it comes from a legal regulator. We dig into the BC Law Society’s mandatory Indigenous education course, the controversy over how it described the Kamloops…
Michael MulliganGuest
Adam StirlingHost
Some interesting items on the agenda this week, including a matter involving the Law Society of British Columbia and a settled claim relating to defamation.
So the background of this relates to a course that the BC Law Society made mandatory for lawyers back in 2024.
The Law Society, of course, is the organization that regulates lawyers in the province.
And one of the things that it did was to make mandatory an Indigenous course intended to, I guess, improve relations or information about Indigenous justice and other issues in the province.
And when the course came in, it was controversial for one reason, because it was mandatory.
But one of the actual, the connection that produced this lawsuit that just settled related to a specific part of this mandatory course, which read at the time, quote, discovery of an unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds, which confirmed what survivors have been seeing all along.
And The background of that, as I understand it, is that there was some investigation done with radar devices, like ground-penetrating radar, that found some anomalies at that site.
And since that occurred, at least as I understand it, there hasn't been anything else done to confirm what the anomalies are, but that's how it was presented in this course.
And it led to a couple of lawyers, including one who's a senior criminal defense lawyer in Victoria here, Jim Heller, bringing a resolution proposing that that language be amended in order to add the word potential to this on the basis that there hadn't been a confirmation of what the anomalies were.
They didn't do that, and it led to this resolution that the lawyers brought to direct the benchers to change the wording of this mandatory course.
That produced a press release by the B.C. First Nations Justice Council that referred to the resolution as being a racist resolution proposed by Law Society members.
And the Law Society chose to link that on their website and make other comments about that, which the lawyers asked be removed on the basis that it was defamatory, referring to them as being racist, for asking that that word potential be added to the description in the course.
The Law Society refused to remove the link to this post and also refused to amend the course.
The other interesting background is that a judge in British Columbia was accused of being racist when they referred to these grave sites as potential grave sites.
That decision wound up being appealed to the court appeal, alleging the judge was racist for having referred to the anomalies in that way at the residential school, went to the Court of Appeal that concluded that the judge wasn't racist and that the description of these being potential grave sites was factually correct.
And of interest, it was the Chief Justice who rendered that decision who himself is Indigenous.
So that occurred, but nonetheless, the Law Society had refused to remove their comments or the links to this allegation that the A request to be changed to the course was itself racist.
And that led to this litigation with the lawyer suing the Law Society for defamation.
And the Law Society stuck at it and litigated that for some period of time until recently they finally settled the claims.
The Law Society, first of all, amended the course to change the language used in it from that original language of affirmatively claiming that 215 children were located on the site.
And they used language that is to the effect of likely burial sites or words to that effect.
Some interesting items on the agenda this week, including a matter involving the Law Society of British Columbia and a settled claim relating to defamation.
So the background of this relates to a course that the BC Law Society made mandatory for lawyers back in 2024.
The Law Society, of course, is the organization that regulates lawyers in the province.
And one of the things that it did was to make mandatory an Indigenous course intended to, I guess, improve relations or information about Indigenous justice and other issues in the province.
And when the course came in, it was controversial for one reason, because it was mandatory.
But one of the actual, the connection that produced this lawsuit that just settled related to a specific part of this mandatory course, which read at the time, quote, discovery of an unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds, which confirmed what survivors have been seeing all along.
And The background of that, as I understand it, is that there was some investigation done with radar devices, like ground-penetrating radar, that found some anomalies at that site.
And since that occurred, at least as I understand it, there hasn't been anything else done to confirm what the anomalies are, but that's how it was presented in this course.
And it led to a couple of lawyers, including one who's a senior criminal defense lawyer in Victoria here, Jim Heller, bringing a resolution proposing that that language be amended in order to add the word potential to this on the basis that there hadn't been a confirmation of what the anomalies were.
They didn't do that, and it led to this resolution that the lawyers brought to direct the benchers to change the wording of this mandatory course.
That produced a press release by the B.C. First Nations Justice Council that referred to the resolution as being a racist resolution proposed by Law Society members.
And the Law Society chose to link that on their website and make other comments about that, which the lawyers asked be removed on the basis that it was defamatory, referring to them as being racist, for asking that that word potential be added to the description in the course.
The Law Society refused to remove the link to this post and also refused to amend the course.
The other interesting background is that a judge in British Columbia was accused of being racist when they referred to these grave sites as potential grave sites.
That decision wound up being appealed to the court appeal, alleging the judge was racist for having referred to the anomalies in that way at the residential school, went to the Court of Appeal that concluded that the judge wasn't racist and that the description of these being potential grave sites was factually correct.
And of interest, it was the Chief Justice who rendered that decision who himself is Indigenous.
So that occurred, but nonetheless, the Law Society had refused to remove their comments or the links to this allegation that the A request to be changed to the course was itself racist.
And that led to this litigation with the lawyer suing the Law Society for defamation.
And the Law Society stuck at it and litigated that for some period of time until recently they finally settled the claims.
The Law Society, first of all, amended the course to change the language used in it from that original language of affirmatively claiming that 215 children were located on the site.
And they used language that is to the effect of likely burial sites or words to that effect.
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