In addition to providing advice on Aboriginal and treaty rights, David advises and represents clients on issues including environmental assessment, employment relations and human rights, taxation, access to information and privacy, corporate governance for non-profits and local economic development.

David’s most important cases include acting for the plaintiffs in the Charter case known as Descheneaux, which successfully challenged sex discrimination in the Indian Act registration (“status”) rules and led to the amendments adopted in 2017 as Bill S-3.

He also appeared for the Abenaki of Québec as intervenors before the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 2008 in the earlier McIvor case, the only party to raise the effects of the double-mother rule that the Court ultimately held created the unconstitutional discrimination that Parliament had to correct through Bill C-3 in 2010.

Also noteworthy was David’s representation of Chief Ghislain Picard of the Assembly of First Nations of Québec and Labrador in his class action against the government of Québec concerning the application of the provincial fuel tax on reserve contrary to the Indian Act. A settlement was reached in 2011 and compensation of $24.3 million was paid to the registered Indians of Québec. Legislative amendments were introduced at the same time so that registered Indians can buy fuel on reserve tax-free.

David represents individuals in cases of historic abuse, including the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). In 2016, he represented the claimant known as M.F. before the Ontario Superior Court and the Court of Appeal, which resulted in recognition of M.F.’s right to compensation for his abuse at the Spanish Indian Residential School, after three levels of adjudication under the IAP had dismissed M.F.’s claim. In 2017, David obtained a rare IAP award for actual income loss, resulting in the eighth-highest compensation award among the tens of thousands of cases heard since the process was created.

Between 2001 and 2018, David appeared five times for interveners before the Supreme Court of Canada in the leading cases of Wewayakum (Crown’s fiduciary duty to First Nations), NIL-TU’O (federal jurisdiction over Aboriginal services), Hamlet of Clyde River (Crown’s duty to consult the Inuit under modern treaties), Williams Lake (powers and jurisdiction of the Specific Claims Tribunal), and J.W. (judicial supervision of the IAP).

David has appeared regularly before the Federal Courts and the Québec Superior Court and Court of Appeal; he has also appeared before the superior or appellate courts of British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland. He has appeared before federal and provincial administrative tribunals, such as the National Energy Board and the Newfoundland Public Utilities Board. He represented the Innu of Ekuanitshit before the Muskrat Falls Inquiry (LeBlanc Commission) and for Makivik Corporation before the Public Inquiry Commission on Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Certain Public Services in Québec: Listening, Reconciliation and Progress (Viens Commission).

David served on the Bar of Québec’s Committee on the Law and Aboriginal Peoples from 1999 to 2012 and has been a member of the editorial board of the Canadian Native Law Reporter since 1996; he has published scholarly articles in law reviews including the McGill Law Journal, the Revue juridique Thémis and the Canadian Tax Journal.

As a volunteer, David has served on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations, including three terms as a director of Canadian Lutheran World Relief and currently as an observer on the board of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund of the Anglican Church of Canada. Before studying law, he trained as a historian with a specialization in Canadian history and previously worked as a professional journalist.