Born and raised in Toronto, his family comes from Chicago and Genaabaajing Anishinaabek and he is an off-reserve member of the Serpent River First Nation.
He is a husband and father, as well as an award-winning writer and speaker. Jesse is best known for more than two decades spent as a columnist for CBC Radio’s Metro Morning. Jesse spent a decade with the Toronto International Film Festival as a curator, including leading the film and gallery programming at the Tiff Lightbox.
He is the author of Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance.
Dr. Lyla June Johnston is of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages.
She is an Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing.
She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions.
Leona Prince is a Dakelh woman from the Lake Babine Nation and Nak’azdli.
Leona has always had a love for traditional and contemporary stories. The two most prominent storytellers in her life were my Sakiy (Great-Aunt) Catherine Caldwell and my Stseets (Grandfather) John Barfoot. When she was a little girl, each of them would weave stories from the two cultures that she descends from. Her Aunt wove beautiful stories from her Dakelh history that spoke of creation as a people.
From a young age, she understood the power of story. She is a mother of three and is a passionate and award-winning educator. She is also now the author of two beautiful children’s books: Be a Good Ancestor and A Dance Through the Seasons!
Mark Thomas is a Kinbasket descendant and member of the Shuswap Band, born in Invermere, BC.
Mark is sitting on his second 4-year term on Council for the Shuswap Band and holds the portfolios for Aquatics, Fish, BC Hydro, Forestry, CRT, Salmon restoration, and several shared portfolios with the rest of Chief and Council, including Parks, Recreation and Culture. Mark is educated in and has worked in the natural resource management field for over 30 years, much of that time advocating for the return of our Salmon stocks. Mark has attended Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (NVIT) in their Integrated Resource Management Program (IRM) and the University of Lethbridge’s Environmental Sciences Program.
In May 2023 Mark was stood up as Salmon Chief for his community.
Dr. Gregory Cajete is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico.
Currently, he is Director of Native American Studies and an Associate Professor in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico.
Dr. Cajete has received several fellowships and academic distinctions, including the American Indian Graduate Fellowship from the US-DOE Office of Indian Education (1977-78); the D’arcyMcNickle Fellowship in American Indian History from the Newberry Library, Chicago, IL (1984-85); and the KatrinLamon Fellowship in American Indian Art and Education (1985-1986) from the School of American Research in Santa Fe, NM.
Dr. Cajete has authored a number of books, including Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence.
Deb Fisher is the Minister of Children and Families and the Minister of Education for the Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC).
She was appointed to the Executive as Secretary for Métis Nation BC for this term and continues to serve of the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Children and Family Service Society and Interior Health Leadership Table.
Her historical Métis family names are Bourassa/ Boyer/ Piche/ Ouellette/ Dumont/ Ross on her mother’s side from Red River, Manitoba and Batoche/Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan area.
David A. Robertson is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.
David is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer’s Union of Canada Freedom to Read award. He has received several other accolades for his work as a writer for children and adults, podcaster, public speaker, and social advocate. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters by the University of Manitoba in 2023 for outstanding contributions to the arts and distinguished achievements.
In his bestselling memoir, Black Water, he shares the story a son who grew up away from his Indigenous culture who takes his Cree father on a trip to the family trapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but creates a new future.
His newest book, 52 Ways to Reconcile, offers a guide to understand how small and attainable acts towards reconciliation can make an enormous difference in our collective efforts to build a reconciled country.
