Norman Lickers (Mohawk)

Norman Edgar Lickers (1913–1987) was a Six Nations lawyer, ironworker, and Indigenous political leader whose career connected professional education with public service. He completed a BA in economics and political science at Western in 1934, trained at Osgoode Hall, and entered legal practice in 1938. His later work included parliamentary consultation, political organizing, and the commemoration of the residential school he had attended. 1, 2

He was the first Indigenous Canadian to earn a BA in economics and political science from Western University (now the University of Western Ontario), the third university-trained Indigenous lawyer in Canada, and the first Status First Nations person called to the Bar in Canada. 2

Childhood and schooling

Lickers was born on 10 June 1913 in Tuscarora Township, on the Six Nations territory near Brantford, Ontario. His father, Henry Lickers, was a farmer. 1 He was the youngest of six children. His mother died during his childhood, and at seven he entered the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford. 3, 4

He later attended Brantford Collegiate Institute while continuing to live at the Mohawk Institute. According to the family history recounted by his granddaughter Kathleen Lickers, permission from the Indian agent was required before he could pursue postsecondary education. 3 His passage into university therefore depended partly on an official who exercised authority over the educational opportunities available to registered First Nations people.

The historian Alison Norman records that Lickers credited teacher Susan Hardie with helping him continue his education at Western. Her article also describes sharply different recollections of Hardie among other former pupils. 5

University study and legal training

Lickers entered the University of Western Ontario (then known as Western University) in 1931. 4 He completed his BA in economics and political science in 1934. 2 This education preceded his entry into Osgoode Hall that autumn. He articled with J. O. Trepanier in Brantford and was called to the Ontario Bar on 17 November 1938. 1

With his completion of legal training in 1938 he became Canada’s third university-trained Indigenous lawyer and its first Status First Nations person called to the Bar. 2

His entry into the profession came after the removal, in 1927, of the statutory provision that had linked entry into certain professions to compulsory enfranchisement. In this context, enfranchisement meant the loss of legal recognition and band membership under the Indian Act. 4 The change helped make professional education compatible with retaining registered status, though it did not eliminate other restrictions or prejudice.

Legal practice and the parliamentary Indian Act inquiry

Lickers established a practice in Brantford, specializing in criminal law. 1 His professional career also brought him into the federal review of the Indian Act. Between 1946 and 1948, a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons examined the legislation and its administration. A research report prepared for the BC First Nations Justice Council identifies Lickers as counsel and liaison officer to that committee. 6

The committee’s work involved hearing Indigenous representatives from across Canada, alongside officials and other witnesses. Its 1948 report proposed extensive changes to Indian administration. Lickers’s participation placed a practising Six Nations lawyer within a process otherwise dominated by federal politicians and administrators. 6

The inquiry nevertheless had serious limits. In her study of the attempted relocation of Wolastoqiyik communities to Kingsclear, Martha Walls notes the restricted opportunities for Indigenous participation and identifies Lickers as the Indigenous participant selected to represent Native interests. She also cites a July 1947 letter from Edwin Tappan Adney to Lickers concerning the inadequate hearing given to Maritime communities. 7 His appointment did not mean that all First Nations had equal access to the committee.

His contribution remained part of Parliament’s institutional memory. At a House of Commons committee meeting on 29 May 2001, Indian Claims Commission co-chair Jim Prentice recalled Lickers’s service as independent counsel to the earlier committee. Kathleen Lickers was present, and Prentice connected her grandfather’s work with continuing efforts to establish an effective independent mechanism for resolving First Nations claims. 8

Disbarment and a change of occupation

The Law Society of Upper Canada disbarred Lickers on 28 September 1950. Constance Backhouse gives that date from archival information and notes press references to allegations involving a client’s money. 1 A 2016 account of his granddaughter’s recollections instead gives 1959. 3 The 1950 date reported by Backhouse, agrees with the twelve-year interval between being called to the Bar and disbarment described in other historical accounts. 4

The published accounts do not provide a complete disciplinary record of the disbarment. Backhouse calls for further research into the treatment of early racialized lawyers by professional regulators, and Mai Nguyen’s history of the profession discusses Lickers within that broader question. 1, 4 The evidence not establish either that the disbarment proceedings were fair or that the charges were fabricated.

The loss of his licence ended his legal practice, but Lickers subsequently worked in ironworking. Backhouse records his employment with Hamilton Bridge and Tank, participation in the ironworkers’ union, and efforts to establish training courses for Indigenous young people. 1

Political leadership and the former Mohawk Institute

Lickers continued to take part in Indigenous public affairs. Backhouse records his consultation on amendments to the Indian Act in 1951, opposition to the federal government’s 1969 White Paper, and service as a founding president of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians. 1 These activities drew on his knowledge of federal policy after his formal legal career had ended.

His later life also returned him to the Mohawk Institute. In Behind the Bricks, historian Cody Groat describes the establishment of the Woodland Cultural Centre in 1972 through the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians and its partner First Nations. On 17 June that year, Lickers represented the former student body at the unveiling of a provincial plaque commemorating the school. 9

Groat emphasizes that the original plaque largely presented the school’s institutional history. The interpretation of the site changed as survivors’ accounts of assimilation and abuse received greater recognition. Lickers’s participation belongs to that earlier phase of commemoration, while the cultural centre developed a different purpose: sustaining Indigenous heritage on the grounds of a former assimilationist institution. 9

Kathleen Lickers’s family account credits her grandfather with helping transform the former school into a cultural education centre. 3 The broader history makes clear that this was a collective undertaking involving Indigenous organizations and communities. His role can be recognized without attributing the entire institution’s creation to one person.

Family memory and the surviving record

Lickers died in March 1987; Backhouse cites a Brantford Expositor obituary published on 16 March that year. 1

His granddaughter Kathleen recalled that the loss of his licence was painful enough that the family seldom discussed his legal career. She learned its history while studying law herself. 3 She later became a prominent Indigenous lawyer; the Law Society Tribunal records her call to the Ontario Bar in 1995 and her work in Indigenous law and adjudication. 10

His image survives in Osgoode Hall’s 1938 class composite. In a university campus essay, L. Anders Sandberg uses that photograph to consider the limited Indigenous presence in the profession and the consequences of Lickers’s exclusion from it. 11 The composite records his membership in a graduating class, while subsequent research supplies the public and personal history that the photograph cannot tell.

Lickers’s career was interrupted, but its later chapters were substantial. His parliamentary service contributed to a national inquiry into Indigenous policy; his political work continued outside legal practice; and his participation at the former Mohawk Institute linked his childhood institution to efforts at cultural renewal. The educational distinctions supplied for this biography remain central to his place in Indigenous Canadian history, while these later activities explain how he continued to use his training. 2, 6, 9

References

1. Backhouse C. Gender and race in the construction of “legal professionalism”: historical perspectives [Internet]. Paper prepared for the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism colloquium; 2003 Oct 20 [cited 2026 Oct 7]. p. 11–12, especially note 31. Available from: https://www.lawsociety.nu.ca/sites/default/files/CLE/Gender%20and%20Race%20in%20the%20Construction%20of%20Legal%20professionalism%20Historical%20Perspectives.pdf
2. Indigenous Canadian Academic Milestones: A Timeline; https://indigenius-canada.wishartlab.com/pioneers/ (accessed 7 October 2026).
3. Brown J. Legal Leaders for Diversity launch aboriginal education program. Canadian Lawyer [Internet]. 2016 Jun 20 [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Available from: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/legal-leaders-for-diversity-launch-aboriginal-education-program/270188
4. Nguyen M. The untold history of the legal profession. Precedent [Internet]. 2018 Dec 4 [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Available from: https://lawandstyle.ca/news/cover-story-the-untold-history-of-the-legal-profession/
5. Norman A. “True to my own noble race”: Six Nations women teachers at Grand River in the early twentieth century. Ontario History [Internet]. 2015 [cited 2026 Oct 7];107(1):5–35. Relevant discussion p. 19. Available from: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/onhistory/2015-v107-n1-onhistory03913/1050677ar.pdf
6. Briggs J, Fadden L, Barnes K. Legal services: legal aid transition preliminary research [Internet]. Westbank (BC): BC First Nations Justice Council; 2023 Feb [cited 2026 Oct 7]. p. 16. Available from: https://trackingjustice.bcfnjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/4-Legal-Aid-Transition-Preliminary-Background-Research-Paper-Feb-2023-.pdf
7. Walls M. Countering the “Kingsclear blunder”: Maliseet resistance to the Kingsclear relocation plan, 1945–1949. Acadiensis [Internet]. 2008 [cited 2026 Oct 7];37(1):3–30. Relevant discussion p. 15, notes 54–55. Available from: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/Acadiensis/article/view/5746
8. Canada. House of Commons. Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. Evidence, meeting 18, 37th Parliament, 1st Session [Internet]. Ottawa: House of Commons; 2001 May 29 [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Testimony of Jim Prentice. Available from: https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/37-1/AANR/meeting-18/evidence
9. Groat C. The stewardship, preservation, and commemoration of the Mohawk Institute. In: Hill RW Sr, Norman A, Peace T, Pettit J, editors. Behind the bricks: the life and times of the Mohawk Institute, Canada’s longest-running residential school [Internet]. Calgary: University of Calgary Press; 2025 [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Chapter 7. Available from: https://ucp.manifoldapp.org/read/behind-the-bricks/section/6b8966de-3336-478f-8703-38904158ea78
10. Law Society Tribunal. Kathleen Lickers [Internet]. Toronto: Law Society Tribunal; [date unknown] [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Available from: https://lawsocietytribunal.ca/adjudicator/adj-kathleen-lickers/
11. Sandberg LA. Inside Osgoode Hall Law School. Alternative Campus Tour [Internet]. Toronto: York University; 2023 Sep [cited 2026 Oct 7]. Available from: https://alternativecampustour.info.yorku.ca/2023/09/inside-osgoode-hall-law-school-l-anders-sandberg/