Robson Crim Legal Blog

Since Delgamuukwi, the oral histories of Indigenous peoples have been recognized as being put on “an equal footing” with documentary evidence.ii Oral history is a means to transmit information orally to record history and preserve Indigenous knowledge.iii The Cowichaniv case was a voir dire to determine the threshold reliability of the oral history evidence of Grant, Guerin and Chief Wayne Sparrow and to allow them to testify without interruption.

Indigenous oral history transfers knowledge and laws throughout generations and has increasingly been used as evidence in Canadian courts. A failure to adequately consider oral history within legal disputes would be problematic in the wake of Canada’s ongoing attempts at reconciliation.