Estair Van Wagner

Biography

Dr. Estair Van Wagner joined the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law as an Associate Professor on July 1, 2024. Before this, she taught at Osgoode Hall Law School, co-directing the Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic, and at the University of Victoria Wellington Faculty of Law in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr. Van Wagner holds degrees in political science, law, and environmental studies from the University of Victoria, Osgoode Hall Law School, and York University.

She led a SSHRC-funded research project with Dr. Sarah Morales and Dr. Mike Ekers, examining Aboriginal title, Indigenous property, and land use systems on Vancouver Island. She also continues to research Maori law and mining in Aotearoa New Zealand with Dr. Maria Bargh. Dr. Van Wagner collaborates with the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate on human rights and homelessness. Her work focuses on property law, natural resource law, planning law, and environmental justice, exploring how law structures relationships with place and the more-than-human world.

Education

• BA (Political Science), University of Victoria;
• LLB Osgoode Hall Law School;
• MES, York University;
• PhD, Osgoode Hall Law School

Selected books

• The Rights of Unhoused Indigenous People: Linking the Right to Housing and Indigenous Rights in Canadian Responses to Encampments (accepted, forthcoming) in Lund A., Buhler S., Legal Unhousing.
• Van Wagner E., Notes from the Periphery: more than (non)ownership in property law (2022) in Graham, N., Davies M., & Godden, L. Handbook of Law Property and Society (London: Routledge).
• Van Wagner E. (2021) Placing Natural Resources Law: Preliminary thoughts on decolonizing teaching and learning about people, places, and law, in Kennedy A. & du Plessis, A (Eds.). Teaching and Learning in Environmental Law: Pedagogy, Methodology and Best Practice (London: Edward Elgar).
• Van Wagner E, Bargh, M. (2021) Unearthing (De)colonial Legal Relations: Mining Law in Aotearoa New Zealand in Bhatia, A., Hewitt J., & Xavier, S. (Eds.). Decolonizing Law (London: Routledge).
• Van Wagner E. (2021) Extracting Indigenous jurisdiction on private land: the duty to consult and Indigenous relations with place in Canadian law, in Bartel, R. & Carter J. (Eds). Space, Place and Law Handbook (London: Edward Elgar), 182-194.
• Van Wagner E, Bargh, M. (2020) Consulting the Consultators: A kaupapa Māori-informed approach to uncovering Indigenous jurisdiction and shifting the research gaze, in O’Donnell T., Robinson, D, & Gillespie, J. Legal Geography: Perspectives and Methods from Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific.
• Van Wagner, E. (2017) West Coast ENT v Buller Coal, in McDonald, E., Stephens, M., & Hunter, R, (Eds). Feminist Judgments Project Aotearoa (London: Hart, pp. 398-419).
• Van Wagner, E. (2017) The Work of Ownership: Shaping contestation in Ontario’s aggregate extraction disputes” Thorup, M., Hojer Bruun, M., Risager, B.S. & Cockburn, P. eds. Contested Property Claims: What disagreement tells us about ownership, pp. 129-150 (London: Routledge).

Selected publications

• Van Wagner E., Flynn, A. (2024) “Human Rights Cities: Realizing the Right to Housing at the Municipal Scale, UBC Law Review.
• Van Wagner E., Morales S., Eker S. (2024) From ‘Private’ Managed Forest Lands to Sts’lunuts’amat Forest Relations: Indigenous jurisdiction, ecological integrity, and fee simple title on Vancouver Island, Justice, Ecology, Law and Place (formerly Journal of Environmental Law and Practice).
• Van Wagner E. (2021) The Legal Relations of ‘Private’ Forests: Making and unmaking private forest lands on Vancouver Island. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Informal Law DOI: 10.1080/07329113.2021.1882803.
• Van Wagner E., Flynn A. (2020) A Colonial Castle: Defence of Property in R v Stanley, Canadian Bar Review 98 (2), 358-387.
• Van Wagner E, Bargh, M. (2019) Participation as Exclusion: Māori engagement with the Crown Minerals Act 1991 Block Offer process. Journal of Environment and Human Rights 1, 118-139.
• Van Wagner, E. (2017) Innovation in a New Zealand Law School’s Resource Management Curriculum. Resource Management Theory and Practice 13, 210-237.
• Van Wagner, E. (2017) “Seeing the Place Makes it Real”: Place-based teaching in the environmental and planning law classroom. Environmental and Planning Law Journal 34, 522-541.
• Van Wagner, E. (2016) Law’s Ecological Relations: The legal structure of people-place relations in Ontario’s aggregate extraction conflicts. Projections 12, 35-62.
• Van Wagner, E. (2016) Law’s Rurality: Land use law and the shaping of rural people-place relations in rural Ontario. Rural Studies 47, Part A, 311-325.
• Van Wagner, E. (2013). Putting Property in its Place: Relational Theory, Environmental Rights and Land Use Planning. Revue général de droit 43, 275-315. Winner of 2013 Johane Paris Award

Other work

•  Flynn, A., Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, H., Van Wagner, E., Encampments and legal obligations: Evolving rights and relationships. The Office of the Federal Housing Advocate (November 2024).
• Van Wagner E. Federal Obligations and Encampments. Report commissioned by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, Canadian Human Rights Commission (January 2024)
• Sankey J., Scott D.N., Tanguay, L. with contributions from Van Wagner E., Ashamock D., Bernauer, W., Bruce A., Guido V., Hoogeveen, D., Morales S. Operationalizing Indigenous-Led Impact Assessment (2023) commissioned by Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.
• Van Wagner E., Bargh M., Crown Minerals Amendment Bill Submission (January 2022)
• Van Wagner, E., Flynn A., Hermer, J., Schwan, K., MacDonald, S., Grimard, C., Overview of Encampments Across Canada: A Right to Housing Approach. Report commissioned by Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, Canadian Human Rights Commission (November 2022)
• Van Wagner, E. McCarten D., Graham L., Schwan K., Flynn, A. Trespassing the Right to Housing: A Human Rights Analysis of Toronto’s Response to Encampments during COVID-19 (Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic, 2021).
• Van Wagner E., Murray, R. Submission re ERO # 019-4278 Minister’s Order for temporary suspension of protection upon the listing of Black Ash under the Endangered Species Act (7 November 2020).
• Van Wagner E., Submission on Motion for Judicial Inquiry into Encampment Clearings, MM36.25 (1 October 2020).
• Van Wagner E. Submission on Advancing the Community Benefits Framework, Item EX20.7, City of Toronto Executive Committee (January 27, 2021).
• Van Wagner E. Submission on Central Intake Shelter Access Data Indicator and Trends, Item EC 18.6 Economic and Community Development Committee (6 December 2020).
• Van Wagner E. Submission re ERO #019-0880 Ontario’s Forest Sector Strategy (Draft) (February 2020).
• Van Wagner E., Bargh M., Submission on Review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (January 2020).
• Van Wagner E., Ekers, M., Morales, S., Morales, R., Higgins, C. (July 2019). Submission on Private Managed Forest Land Program Review, part of the Coast Forest Sector Revitalization Initiative, Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (prepared in collaboration with the partners, including the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group and the First Nations Forestry Council, Van Wagner responsible for drafting 2/3rds of the written report).
• Van Wagner E, Scott D.N. (2019, April). Submission on Motion to Pursue Cost of Climate Change for the City of Toronto, City of Toronto, Infrastructure and Environment Committee, Item IE 4.4).
• Van Wagner E., Scott D.N. (2019, May). Submission re ERO#013-5102 Modernizing Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Program – Environmental Assessment Act, Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks.
• Van Wagner E., Scott D.N. (2019, May). Submission re ERO#013-5033 10th Year Review of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks.
• Van Wagner E., Scott D.N. (2019, April). Submission re ERO#013-4734, Proposal in support of the province’s review of the Far North Act, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. 

Recognition and Awards

• 2020 York Research Leaders Award
• 2020 Osgoode Hall Law School Teaching Award
• 2018 Emerging Faculty Distinguished Education Award - International Union of Conservation Naturalists Academy of Environmental Law

Grants

• 2023 Homeless Encampments and Human Rights: Building Advocacy Tools and Resources (with Heidi Stark and Alexandra Flynn)

• 2022 Homeless Encampments and Gender Based Analysis+ in Canada (Collaborator, PI Kaitlin Schwan, National Network on Women and Homelessness, with Leilani Farha, The Shift, and Alexandra Flynn)

• 2021 Federal Obligations and Homeless Encampments 

• 2021 Homeless Encampments Research Group

• 2021 Operationalizing Indigenous Governing Authority in Impact Assessments of Major Projects (with Dayna Nadine Scott)

• 2020 Feminist Judgments Project Canada

• 2020 The Right to Shelter in Place: Mobilizing a human rights-based approach to homelessness and tent encampments in the COVID-19 city

• 2019 Implementing a Regional, Indigenous-Led and Sustainability-Informed Impact Assessment in Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Co-Applicant (Principal Investigator, Dayna Nadine Scott)

• 2019 The Picklock of Property Relations in British Columbia’s Private Forest Lands: Disentangling title, ownership and governance in Vancouver Island’s Forests

• 2018 Financiers in the forests: On fixes, colonial property regimes and resistance

Courses

• Law 108b: The Private Law Process: Property
• Law 347: Intellectual Property
• Law 348: Managing Intellectual Property 
• Law 363: Conflict of Laws
• Law 367: Telecommunications, Entertainment & Media

Graduate supervision

Professor Van Wagner is interested in supervising students work on property law and property theory, natural resource and environmental law, municipal law and planning, housing and homelessness, Indigenous-state relations in the context of housing and natural resource law. They welcome students interested in looking at these issues in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand.