John Borrows

John Borrows (or Kegedonce in Anishinaabe) He is known as a leading authority on Canadian Indigenous law and constitutional law and has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada. John Borrows is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Early life and education Borrows is Anishinaabe/Ojibway, and a member of the Chippewas of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.

Borrows received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto in politics and history. He went on to earn his Juris Doctor and Master of Laws at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and his Doctor of Philosophy at Osgoode Hall Law School.

From 1998, until 2001, Borrows taught law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he helped start the June Callwood program in Aboriginal law. In 1999, Borrows worked in the newly created northern territory of Nunavut to help develop its legal infrastructure. He taught as part of the Akitsiraq Law School, which was a temporary branch of the University of Victoria Faculty of Law.

After the retirement of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin from the Supreme Court of Canada, there was widespread speculation that Borrows was a leading contender to be the first Indigenous jurist to sit on the country's top court. Ultimately, the seat went to Sheilah Martin, which led to Indigenous legal figures such as Scott Robertson, the president of the Indigenous Bar Association to publicly express their disappointment with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision not to pick an Indigenous person. According to the Toronto Star, Borrows's name was not on the shortlist, so either he did not apply or did not make it to the final shortlist.

Borrows, along with his colleague Val Napoleon, was instrumental in creating the joint common law and Indigenous law degree (JD/JID) program at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, the first program in a Canadian law school to allow an integrated study of the Canadian common law and indigenous legal traditions. The program is a four-year program, and opened in Fall 2018.

Borrows has also received several honorary degrees, including one from Dalhousie University.

Borrows was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2021.

Works First Nations and the Law. Part II (1992) Aboriginal Legal Issues (1998) Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. (2002) Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. (2017)