Chris Hummel

About Chris Hummel

Land, natural resources and Indigenous rights are where Chris Hummel does most of the work, both in court and on the regulatory side, as a Toronto associate at Gowling WLG. Clients range from Indigenous governments and organizations to municipalities, utilities and private landowners. Chris is frequently brought in when a file turns on an untested legal point, a thick scientific record or several regulatory regimes stacked on top of each other.

Chris was on the Gowling WLG team, led by Adam Chamberlain, that advised the Government of Nunavut through the negotiations behind the Nunavut Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement, signed on January 18, 2024. That agreement gives Nunavut and its residents the power to decide how public lands, freshwater and non-renewable resources in the territory are used, and the firm's mandate was set to carry on into implementation.

Acting pro bono for Fair Change Community Services, Chris was one of the people who started a Charter challenge to Ontario's Safe Streets Act, first filed in 2017. Justice Robert Centa of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in favour of Fair Change and found several provisions of the law unconstitutional.

Chris has a BSc in biology and anthropology alongside a joint JD/MES from Osgoode Hall, and was called to the Ontario bar in 2019. Working in Nunavut and with First Nations, together with that science background, gives Chris a footing with technical evidence and Indigenous Knowledge, and a sense of how northern and Indigenous communities work in practice.