Indigenous Role Model Event

Dr. Kimberly Murray is a member of the Kanehsatake Mohawk Nation. Since June 2022, she has held the role of Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. 

Prior to this role, Dr. Murray was the Executive Lead for the Survivors’ Secretariat at the Six Nations of the Grand River, working to recover the missing children and unmarked burials at the Mohawk Institute. She was also Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice from 2015 to 2021, where she was responsible for creating a unit to work with Indigenous communities on revitalizing their Indigenous laws and legal orders. 

In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Murray chaired the expert panel on policing in Indigenous communities, which produced the report Toward Peace Harmony, and Well-Being: Policing in Indigenous Communities. (external link)  From 2010 to 2015, she was the Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada where she worked to ensure that survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential School System were heard and remembered, and to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. 

From 1995 to 2010, Dr. Murray was a staff lawyer and then Executive Director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto. She has appeared before all levels of courts on Indigenous legal issues. She has acted as counsel at several coroner inquests and public inquiries, including the Ipperwash Inquiry in Ontario and the Frank Paul Inquiry in British Columbia. 

Dr. Murray is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2017 National  Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice. In 2015, the Indigenous Bar Association granted Ms. Murray the Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel (IPC) designation. In 2023, Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law conferred an honorary Doctors of Law degree to Dr. Murray.

Riley Yesno (she/her) is a queer Anishinaabe writer, researcher, and public speaker from Eabametoong First Nation. Riley grew up primarily in Thunder Bay, ON and currently calls Toronto, ON, and St. John’s, NL, home. 

She is highly sought after for her words and analysis— called a 'rising powerhouse' by the Toronto Star— she has been a contributor and commentator for some of the largest media outlets in Canada and the world, including the New York Times, BBC World News, The Globe and Mail, and CBC National News. 

Riley has also travelled the globe speaking at internationally renowned institutions and events, including the UN climate negotiations, the Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality, TEDx stages, and many others. 

Her major project right now is to finish her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, where she studies Indigenous/Canadian politics and is a Vanier Scholar.

"From the rez to the United Nations, Riley Yesno has spent almost a decade in some of the most influential places across the globe learning and trying to make a mark in Indigenous advocacy. In her presentation, Riley will discuss her journey from growing up in Northern Ontario to now— including what she has learned from her successes, failures, and the bright future she sees for Indigenous youth".

Dr. Smylie holds many roles, including:

• Director of the Well Living House Action Research Centre for Indigenous Infant, Child, and Family Health and Wellbeing, 
• Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Advancing Generative Health Services for Indigenous Populations in Canada, and 
• Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. 

Dr. Smylie’s research focuses on addressing Indigenous health inequities in partnership with Indigenous communities. She is particularly focused on ensuring all First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples are counted into health policy and planning wherever they live in ways that make sense to them; addressing anti-Indigenous racism in health services; and advancing community-rooted innovations in health services for Indigenous populations. She maintains a part-time clinical practice at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto and has practiced and taught family medicine in a variety of Indigenous communities both urban and rural.  

A Métis woman, Dr. Smylie acknowledges her family, traditional teachers and ceremonial lodge. 

(Photo: Samuel Engelking)