Geraldine (Gramma) Shingoose (she/her) is a grassroots grandmother. Her spirit names are Sky Woman and Northern Lights Woman, and she comes from the Bear Clan. She is a Saulteaux Woman from Tootinaowaziibeeng First Nation, Treaty 4 Territory. She is 9 year Residential School Survivor.

2019. She is currently the NDP Critic for Children, Families, and Social Development, as well as the Critic for Women and Gender Equality, and the Deputy Critic for Housing. Gazan is a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament. In 2019, she introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-232, The Climate Emergency Action Act, which recognizes the right to a healthy environment as a human right. In August 2020, she submitted M-46, which calls on the federal government to convert the Canada Emergency Response Benefit into a permanent Guaranteed Livable Basic Income. In December 2021, she built on this motion by introducing Bill C-223, The National Framework for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income Act. 

As an educator, advisor, and media contributor, Leah Gazan has been deeply engaged with issues and organizing in Winnipeg’s core for nearly three decades. Gazan has spent her life working for human rights on the local, national, and international stage. 

Her contributions in Winnipeg have both shaped our understanding of our collective struggles and strengths and helped move us towards justice. As president of the Social Planning Council between 2011- 2015, Gazan organized and pushed policy in support of an end to poverty, addressing violence against women and girls, finding solutions for housing insecurity and homelessness, ensuring fair wages, community-based actions addressing addictions and proper supports for mental health.

Gazan was a prominent Winnipeg lead during Idle No More, articulating the movement to the Winnipeg public. Gazan also co-founded the #WeCare campaign aimed at building public will to end violence against Indigenous women and girls. Gazan is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, located in Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.

Clayton (he/him) is a member of the Treaty #6 based Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan and located in Northern Manitoba, Canada. He has been recognized by Yes Magazine as a Climate Hero and is featured as one of ten international human rights defenders in the National Canadian Museum for Human Rights. He has campaigned across Canada, Alaska, and the lower 48 states organizing in hundreds of First Nations, Alaska Native, and Native American communities to support Indigenous Peoples to defend their territories against the encroachment of the fossil fuel industry, with a special focus on stopping the expansion of the Canadian tar sands and its associated pipelines. Clayton is an award winning film director, media producer, organizer, facilitator, public speaker, and bestselling author on Indigenous rights and environmental & economic justice. His book, Life in the City of Dirty Water, is a national bestseller and a CBC Canada Reads finalist.

Walter (he/him) is a Métis man living in Slave Lake with knowledge in Indigenous-led land use assessments, a familiarity with Métis Nation governance and rights, and experience in some best practices for Indigenous participation, collaboration, consultation and intercommunity partnership in environmental/impact assessments. He loves the land and the entire beauty of mother earth and all its natural wonders. He is also a trained Climate Reality Leader and a Rock hound and mushroom lover.

Daniel (he/him) is an Anishinaabe, Irish and Métis man from Animakee Wa Zhing in Treaty Three on Lake of the Woods. He eventually moved to Winnipeg, where he pursued a biology degree. Since then, he has worked the last 17 years assisting Indigenous peoples around turtle island to strengthen their food, land and water self-determination. He is currently the director of the Lake Winnipeg Indigenous Collective. A group of First Nations who have come together to advance Indigenous knowledges, values and practices to protect and restore Lake Winnipeg for all future generations.

Julia-Simone Rutgers (she/her) is a climate reporter with a focus on Manitoba’s environmental issues. Her position is part of a three-year partnership between the Winnipeg Free Press and The Narwhal, funded by the Winnipeg Foundation. Before taking on this new collaboration, Rutgers served as the first-ever writer in residence at the Walrus magazine. She has written daily news for the Free Press and the Star Metro Halifax, and has a smattering of bylines in the Globe and Mail, the Coast, and the Discourse. Though she has lived on both coasts, she grew up in Calgary and feels at most at home lounging on riverbanks under the wide open prairie skies. In her spare time, she dabbles in music-making, visual art curation, writing poetry and exploring the forests, fields, lakes and rivers Manitoba has to offer.

MJ McCarron is the Outreach Coordinator for Camp Morning Star, a group of land protectors who have held sacred space from a proposed silica sand mine on the community trapline of Hollow Water FN over the last five years. A longtime educator and fierce advocate for climate justice, MJ developed a school program to educate groups on the current connection between colonization, The Indian Act, and resource extraction. Through land-based activities that allow participants to see the land through an Indigenous lense, students come away with a sense of how many processes and regulations need to change within government to ensure Indigenous peoples are free from climate injustice through free, prior, and informed consent.

Laura Cameron (she/her) is a researcher and community organizer working for climate justice as a guest on Treaty 1 territory. She works in climate policy analysis and has volunteered with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition for the past 7 years, on campaigns aimed at stopping the Line 3 pipeline, solidarity with Wet’suwet’en, TMX resistance, and big bank fossil fuel divestment.

Mat Scammell (he/him) has been studying, volunteering, and working in the environmental sector for 10 years now. He has been a volunteer with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition for over 5 years, primarily with the Accountable Hydro campaign. He first received a Bachelor of Environmental Science in 2018, and then a Bachelor of Arts from the Global Political Economy program in 2021 - both from the University of Manitoba. He firmly believes that we will not achieve environmental sustainability in our society without addressing key economic, social, and political problems.

Glen (they/them) started as ED of MbEN in January 2019. Before that, he worked in the private sector with a local environmental software company, was the community housing and grants coordinator for an inner-city neighbourhood renewal corporation and worked for various national and provincial environmental non-governmental organizations in Manitoba for almost 20 years as a campaigner and community organizer. Glen volunteers as a board member with the National Farmers Foundation and holds a BSc. from the University of Winnipeg that focused on geography and statistics.

Aaniin Nindinawemaaganidok. Miigiizi Ganawaabanijige ogokwe indizhinikaazowin. Sagkeengindoonjibaa, mikinaak nindoodem.
      

Hello my name is Sadie Lavoie. I am a 30 year old Anishinaabe Two-Spirit from Sagkeeng First Nationlocated on Treaty 1 territory, and member of the Turtle Clan. I use They/Them pronouns.
      

I currently work at the University of Manitoba as the Assistant to the Director of Indigenous Leadership Programming with the Office of Vice-President Indigenous.
      

I graduated in 2017 at the University of Winnipeg with a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies andPolitical Science. Over the years since Idle No More, I have worked as a community organizer, campaign and event organizer, graphic artist, published poet and education facilitator. My passion is to be a community advocate educating and raising awareness for Indigenous rights and culture centering Two Spirit and Indigenous matriarchal ways of knowing, being and living. I humbly strive to honour my traditional role of the Turtle Clan while empowering Two Spirit youth to embrace their gifts and work through a matriarchal approach of Indigenous leadership that is based on the Anishinaabek seven teachings.
      

During my years at University of Winnipeg I formerly was the National Executive Representative of theCircle of First Nations, Mètis and Inuit Students of the Canadian Federation of Students; the Vice-President of External Affairs of the University of Winnipeg Students' Association; Aboriginal Student Commissioner for the Canadian Federation of Students-MB; and Co-President for the UW Aboriginal Student Council. Most notably I worked on numerous student-led initiatives including the Indigenous Course Requirement and the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign, as well attended the UN COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco on behalf of the Canadian Climate Youth Coalition. In 2015, I co-founded Red Rising Magazine, an Indigenous-led uncensored magazine featuring Indigenous youth writers and artists.
      

After graduation for a few years, I was the Community Coordinator with Waniskatan: An Alliance of Hydro Impacted Communities under the Environment Geography Department at the University of Manitoba. Most recently, I worked as an art workshop facilitator with Art City; as well as a Research
Assistant at the University of Saskatchewan with One House Many Nations working on social media and website communications; and also an independent graphic artist designer with Bloom + Brilliance.
      

In 2017, I received the Dr. Tobasonakwut Kinew Leadership Award at the University of Winnipeg. In Fall 2019, I also received the Next Generation Peacemaker Award from the Peace and Social Justice Studies Association of Canada.                    

Marianne (she/her) began her career as a health educator in sport, fitness and recreation leadership. After various roles in government, community and education she brings together diverse sector knowledge, community networks and experience to her working partnerships. The common thread through her diverse work has been the social and ecological determinants of health. She has evolved from focusing on what makes healthy individuals to what creates healthy organizations, systems and healthy communities.