Tomson Highway is an Indigenous Canadian playwright,novelist,children's author and musician. He is best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing,both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.
Ted Moses is a Canadian politician from Eastmain,a small remote village in northern Quebec,Canada. He is a former Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees. In addition,Mr. Moses is a recipient of the title of "Officer" of the National Order of Quebec.
Larry Phillip Fontaine,is an Indigenous Canadian leader and former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. He best known for his central role in raising public awareness of the Canadian Indian residential school system and pushing to secure Federal and Papal apologies in 2008 and 2022 respectively. He also helped secure a repudiation of Discovery doctrine from Pope Francis on March 30,2023.
Ron Evans is a former clergyman and politician in Manitoba,Canada. He is the former Chief for the Norway House Cree Nation and former Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. A former priest in the Anglican Church of Canada,Evans is also a prominent figure in the Aboriginal community of northern Manitoba. He unsuccessfully sought election to both the Manitoba Legislature and the House of Commons of Canada,and has served as a band councillor and chief.
Ovide William Mercredi is a Canadian politician. He is Cree and a former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. He is also the former president of the Manitoba New Democratic Party.
J. Wilton Littlechild,known as Willie Littlechild,is a Canadian lawyer and Cree chief who was Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations and a member of Parliament. A residential school survivor,he is known for his work nationally and internationally on Indigenous rights. He was born in Hobbema,now named Maskwacis,Alberta.
The Agreement Respecting a New Relationship Between the Cree Nation and the Government of Quebec is an agreement between the Government of Quebec,Canada,and the Grand Council of the Crees. It was signed on February 7,2002 in Waskaganish,Jamésie,Quebec,after decades of court battles between the Cree and the Government of Quebec. The name was inspired by the 1701 Great Peace of Montreal,also known as "La Paix des Braves".
William Commanda OC was an Algonquin elder,spiritual leader,and promoter of environmental stewardship. Commanda served as Band Chief of the Kitigàn-zìbìAnishinàbeg First Nation near Maniwaki,Quebec,from 1951 to 1970. In his life,he worked as a guide,a trapper and woodsman,and was a skilled craftsman and artisan who excelled at constructing birch bark canoes. He was Keeper of several Algonquin wampum shell belts,which held records of prophecies,history,treaties and agreements. In 2008,Commanda was appointed to the rank of officer of the Order of Canada.
Mary Ellen Elizabeth Turpel-Lafond is a Canadian lawyer and law professor. She has served as a judge and as a legislative advocate for children's rights.
Billy Diamond was the Chief of the Waskaganish,Quebec Cree from 1970 to 1976,the Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees from 1974 to 1984,and a successful businessman who founded Air Creebec.
Harry Smith LaForme is a Canadian judge.
Shirley Cheechoo is a Canadian Cree actress,writer,producer,director,and visual artist,best known for her solo-voice or monodrama play Path With No Moccasins,as well as her work with De-Ba-Jeh-Mu-Jig theatre group. Her first break came in 1985 when she was cast on the CBC's first nations TV series Spirit Bay,and later,in 1997,she found a role on the CBC's TV series The Rez.
Alexan Simeon Janvier was a First Nations painter in Canada. A member of the Indian Group of Seven,he helped pioneer contemporary Aboriginal art in Canada.
Delia Opekokew is a Cree lawyer and writer from the Canoe Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan,Canada. She was the first First Nations woman lawyer to be admitted to the bar association in Ontario and in Saskatchewan,as well as the first woman to run for the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations. Opekokew attended Beauval Indian Residential School and Lebret Indian Residential School. She has received awards for her achievements,including the Aboriginal Achievement Award,Women's Law Association of Ontario Presidents Award,Law Society of Ontario Medal,and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Lifetime Achievement Award.
Roberta L. Jamieson,OC is a Canadian lawyer and First Nations activist. She was the first Indigenous woman ever to earn a law degree in Canada,the first non-Parliamentarian to be appointed an ex officio member of a House of Commons committee,and the first woman appointed as Ontario Ombudsman.
Duncan McCue is a Canadian television and radio journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is Anishinaabe (Ojibway),from Ontario,a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. A longtime reporter for CBC Television's The National,he was the host of CBC Radio One's radio call-in show Cross Country Checkup from 2016 to 2020,and the first Indigenous person to host a mainstream show at the public broadcaster. He lives in Toronto.
The Grand Council of the Crees or the GCC(EI),is the political body that represents the approximately 18,000 Cree people of the territory called Eeyou Istchee in the James Bay and Nunavik regions of Northern Quebec,in The Grand Council has twenty members:a Grand Chief and Deputy-Grand Chief elected at large by the Cree people,the Chiefs elected by each of the ten communities,and one other representative from each community.
Diom Roméo Saganash is a Cree lawyer and former politician from Canada. Saganash served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou in Quebec from 2011 to 2019. A member of the New Democratic Party (NDP),he was first elected to the House of Commons in the 2011 federal election and was re-elected in the 2015 federal election. He did not run in 2019.
Madeleine (Kétéskwew) Dion Stout is a Cree author,speaker,and health care professional. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2015.
Abel Bosum is a Cree leader and negotiator who,as of 2019,is serving as Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees of Northern Quebec and President of the Eeyou Istchee James Bay Regional Government. He has worked for the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec since 1977 in various capacities. From 1984 to 1998,Bosum served as the Chief of his home nation,the Oujé-Bougoumou Cree Nation. During his time as chief,he was able to negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal with the governments of Quebec and Canada to build a new village for the nation following the peoples' seventh forcible relocation due to mining and forestry activity in Northern Quebec. In 1998,he became the head negotiator of the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec. Since 2015,Abel Bosum has also served as President of the Aanischaaukamikw Foundation and of the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural institute.
