Water Law: Collaborative Solutions within Multiple Legal Orders 2025

Course Chairs
Oliver M. Brandes — Co-Director, Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and Public Policy, POLIS Project; Centre for Global Studies, UVic, Victoria
Deborah L. Curran — Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Environmental Law Centre, UVic, Victoria

About the Course Chairs
Oliver Brandes is an economist and lawyer by training and a trans-disciplinarian by design. He serves as co-director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, based at the University of Victoria's Centre for Global Studies (CFGS), where he leads the award-winning POLIS Water Sustainability Project. His work focuses on water sustainability, sound resource management, public policy development, and ecologically based legal and institutional reform.

Oliver serves as the Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and Public Policy at CFGS. He is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Victoria Faculty of Law and School of Public Administration, and is a fellow of the Environmental Law Centre. In 2012, he co-developed BC's first water law course at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law. He also has affiliations at the University of Manitoba and Brock University.

Oliver is a technical advisor to the BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, supporting the ongoing development of the provincial Water Sustainability Act. He also provides ongoing advisory support to the provincial government and Indigenous nations on issues of governance and water law for watershed governance pilots and planning projects underway in regions across the province, including the Koksilah, Cowichan, Skeena, Nicola, Hullcar, and Coquitlam watersheds. In 2017, Oliver was appointed to lead an independent expert review on source drinking water protection in BC, which resulted in regulatory change and informed the Auditor General of BC’s work on drinking water.

Working in various settings, including scholarly, community, and expert practitioner forums, Oliver is a regular speaker and actively drives public dialogue and champions water sustainability and watershed security. This work includes chairing and planning the decade-long series of innovative biennial national Watersheds forums. He is also a founding member and chair of the national Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW), and an advisor to numerous national, provincial, and local governments, water funders, and water organizations, including the First Nations Fisheries Council, Freshwater Legacy Initiative, and the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources.

Both in research and practice, Deborah Curran is engaged in the subjects of water and regional or watershed sustainability. Flowing through all of her research is an interest in how legal and policy structures (1) facilitate or impede us from adapting to changing ecological conditions, and (2) shape decision-making through governance processes. It is adaptive governance that assists us to respond to socio-ecological conditions, and law —Indigenous, customary community, municipal, provincial and federal—plays a foundational role in how well any watershed community responds over time or to specific events.

Deborah is privileged to be associated with both the Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences) at the University of Victoria. She teaches in the areas of land and water regulation and law, including water law, municipal law, and the Environmental Law Clinic – Intensive course. She also facilitated a unique field course in environmental law in the Central Coast at the Hakai Institute on Calvert Island from 2011-15, and is committed to field course-based learning. As the executive director with the Environmental Law Centre at UVic, she supervises students working on environmental law projects for community organization and First Nation clients (see www.elc.law.uvic.ca). Deborah's work as a municipal and environmental lawyer influences her teaching and typically expects students to complete course work—legal memos or research papers—on topics that are currently relevant for municipal, First Nation or community organization staff. All of her courses explore how colonial law interacts with or has an impact on indigenous laws and communities.

Faculty
Stanley H. Ashcroft — Ashcroft & Company, West Vancouver
Clayton Leonard — JFK Law LLP, Victoria
Tara Marsden/Naxginkw — Wilp Sustainability Director, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs; Principal, Hlimoo Sustainability Solutions, Kitwanga
Kukpi7 (Chief) Fred Robbins — Esk'etemc, Alkali Lake
Julian Riddell — Woodward & Company Lawyers LLP, Victoria
Melinda J. Skeels — Ratcliff LLP, North Vancouver
Dr. Shannon Waters — Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Planetary and Water Health, Office of the Provincial Health Officer, Victoria 
Rosalie C.N. Yazzie — Nesika Law Corporation, Westbank

Click here for full faculty bios

Course Introduction and Land Acknowledgement (9:00 – 9:10)

Teresa Sheward — Program Lawyer, CLEBC, Vancouver
Oliver M. Brandes — Co-Director, Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and Public Policy, POLIS Project; Centre for Global Studies, UVic, Victoria
Deborah L. Curran — Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Environmental Law Centre, UVic, Victoria

Indigenous Water Relationships (9:10 – 10:20)

• Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Aks Ayookxw Water Policy

Tara Marsden/Naxginkw — Wilp Sustainability Director, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs; Principal, Hlimoo Sustainability Solutions, Kitwanga

• Implications of claim to submerged lands in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada (Attorney General)    

Julian Riddell — Woodward & Company Lawyers LLP, Victoria

BREAK (10:20 – 10:30)

Addressing Water Harms (10:30 – 12:00)

• Thomas and Saik'uz First Nation v. Rio Tinto Alcan—tort claims grounded in the Aboriginal right to fish, and Crown responsibility

Melinda J. Skeels — Ratcliff LLP, North Vancouver

• Esk'etemc First Nation's Specific Claim

Stanley H. Ashcroft — Ashcroft & Company, West Vancouver
Kukpi7 (Chief) Fred Robbins — Esk'etemc, Alkali Lake

Watersheds as Health Infrastructure (12:00 – 12:30)

Dr. Shannon Waters — Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Planetary and Water Health, Office of the Provincial Health Officer, Victoria 

LUNCH (12:30 – 1:15)

Water Allocation (1:15 – 3:00)

• FITFIR, water scarcity, and water sustainability plans
• groundwater
• water quality and objectives
• Indigenous interests and rights
• watershed-specific innovation

Oliver M. Brandes — Co-Director, Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Public Policy, POLIS Project; Centre for Global Studies, UVic, Victoria
Deborah L. Curran — Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Environmental Law Centre, UVic, Victoria
Clayton Leonard — JFK Law LLP, Victoria
Rosalie C.N. Yazzie — Nesika Law Corporation, Westbank

BREAK (3:00 – 3:15)

Daylighting Legal Issues Roundtable (3:15 – 4:00)

• legal scope of water
• wildfire
• beneficial use
• changing water licenses (allocation)

Oliver M. Brandes — Co-Director, Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and Public Policy, POLIS Project; Centre for Global Studies, UVic, Victoria
Deborah L. Curran — Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Environmental Law Centre, UVic, Victoria
Julian Riddell — Woodward & Company Lawyers LLP, Victoria
Melinda J. Skeels — Ratcliff LLP, North Vancouver

Closing Comments (4:00 – 4:05)

Oliver M. Brandes — Co-Director, Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships and Public Policy, POLIS Project; Centre for Global Studies, UVic, Victoria
Deborah L. Curran — Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Environmental Law Centre, UVic, Victoria