Brenda E. Gaertner

Partner, Mandell Pinder LLP

Phone: 604.566.8560
brenda@mandellpinder.com

Assistant: Amy Burrows | amy@mandellpinder.com


Profile

Brenda Gaertner was called to the bar in 1984 and has been with Mandell Pinder almost since its inception. She provides advice to indigenous governments on aboriginal title and rights, modern (self) government, natural resource management and economic development. Her work primarily focuses on negotiations and facilitation, including governance and resource management, impact-benefit agreements, and economic development within traditional territories and on reserves. She has provided legal, policy and negotiating advice to a number of Nations regarding BC Hydro facilities, including consideration of footprint and ongoing impacts of hydroelectric facilities.

Brenda assists in the formation of improved working relationships between First Nations, other governments and business partners in a variety of ways. She is particularly interested in working with indigenous governments to create modern governance structures for land and resource management, economic development and government-to-government relations. In addition, Brenda has assisted a number of First Nation communities to conclude specific claim settlements with the federal Crown. Brenda also offers facilitation and mediation services to First Nation governments and organizations that are interested in pursuing common goals and/or resolving disputes outside the courts.

Throughout her career Brenda has worked with Aboriginal people in their pursuit of the recognition of aboriginal title and rights to healthy fisheries, helping to find ways to ensure that those fisheries are sustained for present and future generations. She has a long history of working with First Nation communities who rely upon the fisheries of the Fraser River. Recently she has found herself swimming upstream in the Cohen Inquiry on the Fraser River Sockeye.

In addition to a number of large on reserve residential and commercial development projects, Brenda assists First Nations in initiating and concluding joint ventures, located on and off reserve, for such things as independent power projects, film industry projects, as well as fishing, forestry, and other resource extraction/processing operations. These ventures have included both incorporated and unincorporated joint ventures, limited partnerships and the creation and use of trusts.


Education

LL.B Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, 1983
   
B.A. Criminology, Simon Fraser University, 1978-80



Professional Standing

Member, Law Society of B.C. (1984)


Selected Publications

The Scope of Section 35 Fishery Rights: A Legal Overview and Analysis (Prepared for the First Nations Panel on Fisheries, March 31, 2004).

Establishing a Fraser Watershed Process (Prepared for Fraser River Aboriginal Fisheries Secretariat, August 8, 2003).


Other Activities

Kayaking, hiking, national and international travel.

Meditation, yoga, gardening.

Steward of Equinox Gardens, Gabriola Island, a sanctuary for meditation, retreat,  music and dance.