BSc (Queen’s), BA Hons (Regina), LLB (Saskatchewan), LLM (McGill) PhD in Law (UVic). Nicole's research focuses on the history of Canadian federalism, public policy history intergovernmental agreements, including the British North America Act, 1930 (the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements) and Medicare.
She has published two co-authored articles on the history of Medicare and is working on articles about the history of Medicare in Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland. She has recently published papers on the history of abortion access in the Maritimes and Indigenous-State Relations in 1990s New Brunswick. She frequently does print, radio and television interviews with the Canadian Press, CTV Atlantic, CBC New Brunswick, Brunswick News and The Lawyer’s Daily. She is an interviewer for Witness to Yesterday – The Podcast of the Champlain Society.
Nicole is the current President of the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA). She serves on the Law Society of New Brunswick’s Truth and Reconciliation Education Committee and is Chair of the Indigenous Engagement Committee for the Nature Trust of New Brunswick. She also serves on various university committees including the Strategic Program Review Committee and the Academic Planning Committee. She supervises a several graduate students in the Interdisciplinary and History programs. Before joining UNB Law in 2009, she clerked at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and was a member of the Saskatchewan bar.
Nicole’s papers may be found on her Academia.edu profile
O’Byrne, Nicole and Karen McGill, “ ‘Aboriginal government through the negotiation of practical arrangements: Indigenous-State Relations in 1990 New Brunswick,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies, Volume 16, No. 1 (Spring 2024): 219-246.
O’Byrne, Nicole and Elise Hamill. “The Legal History of Abortion Access in the Maritimes,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies [forthcoming]
Lee, Angela and Anna Lund (with Irina Ceric, Audrey Fried, Adrien Habermacher, Gail Henderson, Constance McIntosh, Nicole O’Byrne, Wendy Parkes, and Vanisha Sukdeo). “Teaching Modalities: The Comparative Value of Online and In-Person Legal Education.” (2024) 11 Canadian Legal Education Annual Review 99-115.
O’Byrne, Nicole. “Searching for W.P.M. Kennedy: The Biography of an Enigma by Martin Friedland.” Canadian Historical Review vol. 104, no. 2 (June 2023): 300-302.
O’Byrne, Nicole and Alden Spencer. “Leaving the Classroom Behind? Lessons Learned from Designing an Online Law and Film Webinar Series,” Collage sur le droit et la savoir au temps de la pandémie/Law and Learning in the Time of Pandemic, Lex Electronica, volume 25, Numéro 4, pp. 104-110.
O’Byrne, Nicole. “Teaching Aboriginal Law in an Age of Reconciliation,” Antistasis 9 (2019) Issue 1, 56-65.
O’Byrne, Nicole. Is History Too Important to be Left to Historians? A Review of Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests by Peter Russell. (21 September 2018).
O’Byrne, Nicole. “‘No other weapon except organization’: The Métis Association of Alberta and the 1938 Métis Population Betterment Act” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association vol 24, no. 2 (2013): 311-352.
O’Byrne, Nicole. “Through the Grace of God I am the founder of Manitoba’: Louis Riel’s Constitutional Thought.” Hans V. Hansen (ed.) Riel’s Defence: Perspectives on His Speeches. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014, pp. 90-105.
Marchildon, Gregory P. and Nicole O’Byrne. “Last Province Aboard: New Brunswick and National Medicare.” Acadiensis, volume XLII (Winter/Spring 2013): 150-167.
Marchildon, Gregory P. and Nicole C. O’Byrne. “From Bennettcare to Medicare: The Morphing of Medical Care Insurance in British Colombia.” In Making Medicare: New Perspectives on the History of Medicare in Canada, ed. Gregory P. Marchildon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 2012, pp. 207-228.
O’Byrne, Nicole. “A rather vexed question…’: The Federal-Provincial Debate over the Constitutional Responsibility for Métis Scrip.” The Review of Constitutional Studies, volume 12 (2007): 41-79.
April 12, 2024 - Martin Friedland, Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases
March 8, 2024 - Bill Waiser and Jennie Hansen, Cheated: The Laurier Liberals and the Theft of First Nations Reserve Land
February 23, 2024 - Joan Sangster and Lori Chambers, Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume XII: New Essays in Women’s History.
February 16, 2024 - Thomas Peace, The Slow Rush of Colonization: Spaces of Power in the Maritime Peninsula, 1680-1790.
February 8, 2024 - C. Ian Kyer, The Ontario Bond Scandal of 1924 Re-Examined
October 19, 2023 - Kent Roach, Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes and What Canada Must Do to Safeguard Justice.
March 16, 2023 - Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson, Unequal Communities: The Waywayseecappo Indian Reserve and the Town of Rossburn.
May 29-31, 2024 - “Experiments in Teaching in a World of Generative AI,” Canadian Association of Law Teachers annual conference, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB.
May 29-31, 2024 - “Promotion of Student Health and Wellness Initiatives Insides and Outside the Classroom Setting,” Canadian Association of Law Teachers annual conference, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB.
May 9-11, 2024 - (with John Reid and Chief Patricia Bernard). Plenary. “Historians as Expert Witnesses in Indigenous Land Claims Litigation: Examining the Role Played by Elizabeth Mancke and Bill Parenteau in Madawaska Maliseet First Nation v. The Queen (2017). Atlantic Canada Studies conference, University of Maine at Orono.
May 9-11, 2024 - “Lord Beaverbrook and Mary Louise Lynch, Q.C.: A Professional and Personal Relationship, Atlantic Canada Studies conference, University of Maine at Orono.
May 8, 2024 - “Some Background Information for the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications regarding Bill S-273. An Act to declare the Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland System and related works to be for the general advantage of Canada.” (via zoom).
April 28-30, 2024 - “The Duty to Accommodate in Canadian Post-Secondary Education Institutions,” Canadian Association for the Practical Study of Law in Education Annual Conference, Sheraton Centre Hotel, Toronto, ON.
March 12, 2024. - “Ubi jus, ibi remedium: Section 24(2) of The Constitution Act, 1982,” Criminal Defence Advocacy Society and the British Columbia Court House Library Society Scholars’ Series.
December 8, 2023 - (with Nat Perry), “Supporting Wellness Inside and Outside the Classroom,” Kaleidoscope Teaching Showcase.
August 31, 2024 - Canadian Press. Son of man who died in N.B. ER says premier using death to score political points.
November 7, 2023 - CBC Online (Jacques Poitras). Higg ‘Not Optimist’ he can Block Federal Carbon Tax Collection.
July 18, 2023 - CBC Online (Jacques Poitras). N.B., N.S. Premiers ask Ottawa for Isthmus Funding, but Unhappily.
January 26, 2022 - CBC News Minister Lashes Out as Green MLA Stalls Vote on ‘Safe Communities’ Bill
January 24, 2022 - CBC News Banning Gatherings ‘Orwellian’ to One Law Prof, Reasonable to Another
June 6, 2021 - CBC online. New Brunswick’s little-known school for assimilating Indigenous children.
June 4, 2021 - Francopresse. La Cour suprême reconnait des droits ancestraux au Canada à certains Autochtones américains
June 3, 2021 - CBC Information Morning (Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton). History of a Day School.
November 30, 2020 - The Globe and Mail. The Marshall decision explained: Why the impact of a 1999 Supreme Court ruling is still felt today.
June 15, 2020 - CBC online. Higgs scraps legislation to increase emergency powers of government and police.
June 11, 2020 - CBC online. Bill would give police, government sweeping power over citizens.
May 7, 2020 - CBC online. Virus problems in Quebec, New England entrench strict border measures in N.B.
May 3, 2020 - NB Media Co-op. Nicole O’Byrne on Tommy Douglas and Louis J. Robichaud and their Contributions to Medicare.
May 1, 2020 - CBC online. First Nations saddened but not surprised by acquittal in hit-and-run death of Brady Francis.
April 29, 2020 - CBC Information Morning. Interview with Terry Seguin on community conversation about the people who helped shape public health care in the province.
January 9, 2020 - Canadian Press. Group to examine UNB law faculty building name and connection to slavery.
January 8, 2020 - CBC online. ‘No plans’ to change judicial transfer veto power, says Justice Department.
October 31, 2019 - CTV News (Kevin Bissett/ The Canadian Press). New Brunswick slavery connections: Portrait of Ludlow removed from law school.
October 31, 2019 - L’actualité. Le portrait du juge pro-esclavage George Duncan Ludlow retiré de l’UNB.
October 11, 2019 - National Post. UNB considers name change after law students raise concerns about faculty namesake.
August 13, 2019 - Global News. New Brunswick Crown will not appeal acquittal in Oland murder trial.
July 22, 2019 - ICI Nouveau-Brunswick. Une enquête sue le meurtre de Richard Oland est-elle toujours possible?
July 19, 2019 - A breakdown of the not guilty verdict of Dennis Oland.
July 18, 2019 - CTV News. NB judge will deliver Oland verdict, take 2, on Friday.
June 11, 2019 - CBC Fredericton (interview with Terry Seguin). UNB law prof explains duty to consult.
May 30, 2019 - Canadian Press/National Post. Views of New Brunswick professor draw growing concerns from faculty members.
May 16, 2019 - CBC New Brunswick. How a juror was booted from a high-profile trial for staring and his spouse’s Facebook ‘like’.
April 30, 2019 - Lawyers Daily. Ontario still must do more to boost Indigenous representation on juries.
April 3, 2019 - Canadian Press/National Post. Judge banishes Ontario Man from Prince Edward Island for two years.
March 7, 2019 - CBC New Brunswick. Cabinet ministers stand by Trudeau, backbenchers not completely sold.
February 7, 2019 - Canadian Press/CTV Atlantic. Psychiatric assessment of alleged Fredericton spree killer completed.
November 26, 2018 - CTV Atlantic News at 6. Police misconduct and the Oland retrial.
November 23, 2018 - Canadian Press/Toronto Star/CBC New Brunswick. Jury dismissals in Atlantic Canada raise wider issues about vetting: experts.
October 31, 2018 - CBC radio (Alessandra Figaro). La longue formation du jury de process Dennis Oland, le derniere du genre.
October 12, 2018 - Canadian Press (Chris Morris). Dennis Oland’s retrial in alleged murder of father to begin with jury selection.
September 26, 2018 - Info AM Saint John (interview with Hance Colbourne) Interview with Hance Colbourne re the New Brunswick provincial election results.