Red River Métis lawyer advocates for Indigenous justice

August 7, 2026

Citizen Amanda Carling helped launch Canadian Registry for Wrongful Convictions

_{Amanda Carling has served on the Canada Committee of the Human Rights Watch since 2016.}

It was during law school when Red River Métis lawyer Amanda Carling had an "aha" moment that shaped her commitment to addressing the injustices Indigenous peoples face in Canada.

"My life goal is truly to use the law to help and to not hurt vulnerable people," said Carling. "When I was in law school, I had this moment of going, 'oh my god, the genocide against Indigenous people could not have happened without lawyers. Lawyers wrote the legislation that allowed Métis people to have their land stolen.'"

Little did she know that this spark would take her across Canada with work to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the justice system, and prevent and rectify wrongful convictions. Now living in British Columbia, the province she was born in, Carling was raised in Winnipeg. Her early experiences of her Red River Métis identity have strongly influenced her career trajectory.

"I have a very strong memory as a kid of being at a neighbour's house and talking about being Métis with the mother of this family, and my brother ran home to tattle on me to tell our parents that I had presumably done something wrong in sharing this family secret," she said. "That was the first time where I kind of realized that maybe this is something that some people, and my brother as a young child, felt kind of shame about."

Through the Beyond Borders program, Carling recently received her Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) Citizenship card.

"I've been hugely supported by the MMF, which I'm so grateful for," she said, adding that when she received the physical card in the mail, "I cried because it was just so important to me... to have this Citizenship."

The lawyer, educator, and advocate brought her connection to her Red River Métis heritage into her law practice, starting from her education.

"The process of connecting to my Métis heritage has really been connected to understanding Métis legal traditions and the way that my education has allowed me to serve the Indigenous community and what I've been able to do with my law degree since," she said.

_{In 2020, Carling was awarded the Precedent Setter Award for "revolutionizing legal education."}

It was during Carling's criminology undergrad at the University of Manitoba, when she enrolled in a practicum course with Judge Judith Elliott and observed youth court, that her understanding of Indigenous overrepresentation in the legal system changed.

"I remember watching child after child, all of whom were visibly Indigenous, most of whom didn't have a parent there to support. Sometimes there was a CFS worker, some of them were seemingly just on their own. It was that moment of not just understanding the statistics of overrepresentation from a book, which I had been studying for two years plus already, but actually seeing this is what court looks like," she said. "It was that moment, not of my head deciding, but really of my heart deciding that this is what I wanted to do with my life."

After attending law school at the University of Toronto, Carling sat at a crossroads for articling, a work placement that can determine the future of a lawyer's career.

"I had two options... one of them was to work with a provincial government in Ontario, [or] I could work with a non-profit organization," she said. "All of the advice I got was go with the government, go with stability, go with the pension. And all of that was very good advice... but I went with my heart, and I started working for Innocence Canada."

While working on significant cases at Innocence Canada (a legal non-profit that helps overturn wrongful convictions), Carling began to notice a lack of attention to wrongful convictions of Indigenous people in the justice system.

"Almost no one was talking about Indigenous people in the context of miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and to me it was so obvious," said the Red River Métis lawyer. "Perhaps the racism that has resulted in this overrepresentation situation is also causing miscarriages of justice."

At Innocence Canada, Carling began developing her knowledge on the issue of miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and worked on an outreach and education initiative.

"Through that work, over two years, I travelled all across northern Ontario, a little bit into Manitoba, in the territories, and in British Columbia," she said. "[I] was able to do public legal education with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities on wrongful convictions."

What really struck the Red River Métis lawyer - and solidified her dedication to working in the criminal justice system - was sitting in community with people directly impacted by the justice system.

"Everything I suspected about the overrepresentation of Indigenous people - the prejudice, policing, and tunnel vision on the part of the Crown - all of these causes of wrongful convictions impact Indigenous people disproportionately," she said.

My life goal is truly to use the law to help and to not hurt vulnerable people. - Amanda Carling

After spending a few years working with Innocence Canada, Carling took a job at the University of Toronto and supported the law school's reform efforts around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. It was there that she continued her work on wrongful convictions with her former law professor.

"I got to co-teach the course on wrongful convictions with Professor Kent Roach... through that process, [we] developed the Canadian Registry of Wrongful Convictions, which is the first comprehensive database of data around wrongful convictions in Canada," she said. "Our students and a few journalists as well were foundational in getting that project off the ground."

It was this collective, groundbreaking effort that has made tangible changes for Indigenous people affected by wrongful conviction.

"There's been a real shift in the innocence movement in Canada by virtue of some of this advocacy that myself and Kent Roach and others have done," Carling said. "More Indigenous people have received remedies for wrongful convictions. More Indigenous people's cases are being worked on. And very importantly, the federal government has passed legislation at the end of 2024 to support the building of a commission, a commission that will review applications for wrongful convictions."

Carling will continue to work on and expand the Canadian Registry for Wrongful Convictions, bringing needed advocacy for Indigenous people who have the justice system too often working against them. Learn more about Amanda Carling, her legal career, and her advocacy work at: amandacarling.ca.

Like Carling, the MMF recognizes that justice must reflect Indigenous traditions, values, and perspectives. Through the Métis Justice Institute, the MMF provides justice services, programs, support, and advocacy that respond to the needs of the Red River Métis community. To learn more, visit mmf.mb.ca/metis-justice-institute.

 

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