Hilda Anderson-Pyrz is a member of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and is currently Chair of the National Family and Survivors Circle in Canada. For the past 20 years, she has been a tireless advocate and leader to prevent and end gender- and race-based violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people

Through her grassroots advocacy work, Hilda has relentlessly spoken truth to power, holding systems and structures accountable in addressing the ongoing genocide of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people. She has presented at the United Nations and across Canada. It is her firm belief that every member of society has a responsibility — and is part of the solution — in ending all forms of gender-and race-based violence

Hilda is a leader in developing community- and strength-based mechanisms to raise awareness, deliver services, create solutions, and take action rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and being.  She was instrumental in establishing the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc.’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) Liaison Unit, where she was the Director for five years.  Hilda served as President of the Families First Foundation and as Co-Chair of the Manitoba MMIWG Coalition.

She is the recipient of the 2019 RESOLVE Manitoba Community Award and the Manitoba Honour 150 Award in February 2021, in recognition of her work to raise awareness of gender-based violence.

Hilda’s continued determination to center the voices and expertise of families of MMIWG and 2SLGBTQIA+ people is guided by her own life experience as an impacted family member and the recognition that Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people are sacred. She is committed to advocating for Indigenous-led solutions using decolonizing, Indigenous and human rights-based, and self-determined approaches.

Ann Maje Raider is a Kaska grandmother and a member of the Wolf clan in the unceded Kaska Territory in the Southeast Yukon. As the former Chief of Liard First Nation — and the first to be democratically elected —Ann has demonstrated over 25 years of service, leadership, and activism, advocating to end violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

In 1998, along with a small group of Kaska women, Ann joined the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society (LAWS).  The Society acquired legal standing during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and its submission provided recommendations from Yukon women on ending gender- and race-based violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

As the Society’s Executive Director, Ann has implemented numerous and innovative social response initiatives related to cultural wellness and social justice. Recently, the Society and the RCMP came together to implement a groundbreaking community safety protocol called “Together for Justice”, which was recognized for Best Practices by the United Nations and earned Ann the Yukon Government Community Safety Award for Outstanding Project in 2016.

Today, Ann co-chairs the Yukon Advisory Committee, which is helping develop the “Changing the Story to Upholding Dignity and Justice: Yukon MMIWG2S+ Strategy”. Her current role as a member of the National Family and Survivors Circle furthers her passion for advocacy, which comes from her lived experience of giving a voice to her sister, who was murdered. Her abilities to engage her community in a consistent path of development and blend traditional and Western therapeutic models of practice have earned her recognition, including the 2017 Governor General Polar Award.

Charlotte Wolfrey (Pottle) was born on the land in the Rigolet area of Nunatsiavut. Strongly rooted in her Inuit heritage, she practices her culture and lives from the animals and plants from her community.

Known regionally and nationally for her advocacy work for the rights of women and children and for speaking against family violence, Charlotte has held a variety of senior management positions in health care and municipal administration, including serving on the Community Council and Labrador Inuit Association.

In addition to being involved in research since the early 1980s, she has served many local, provincial, national and international committees and organizations, including Canadian Inuit Circumpolar Health Society, Atlantic Aboriginal Health Research, and the Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

In recognition of her decades of service and advocacy, she was named Pauktuutit’s Inuit Woman of the Year in 2011, and became a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013. In 2012, Charlotte was selected to be an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For two years, she served on the National Family Advisory Circle, which helped provide recommendations and guidance to the Commissioners of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. After years of speaking out and advocating for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people, she is hopeful that transformational change will be possible.

Charlotte is now active as a board member of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada and is also currently serving as AngajukKâk (Mayor) of Rigolet. She is proudest of being a wife, a mother to her four children, a grandmother, and a great grandmother.

Janet Pitsiulaaq Brewster, elected in 2019, currently serves as Deputy Mayor for the City of Iqaluit. She is a profound Inuk artist using art as a catalyst for discourse and civic engagement on femicide, trauma and survival. 

As an active social political activist and feminist, she works endlessly to better her community and the lives of Inuit. Pitsiulaaq devotes her career to organizing community-engagement projects and northern development initiatives and advocacy for artists, homelessness, and MMIWG2S+. 

She is a survivor and crusader for systemic change in policy, legislation, and the criminal justice system to stop gender-based violence against women. Pitsiulaaq has been impacted by the loss of family members, including her aunt Sylvia Ann Lyall, who was murdered in 2003, and her cousin Angela Pitseolak Meyer, who has been missing in Yellowknife since 2010. She testified at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2018.

A mother of three, parent and ningiuq to her aunt’s orphaned son and his daughter, Pitsiulaaq became known throughout Iqaluit for transforming graffiti into positive messages by covering the previous offensive images and statements with words of kindness and support.

Melanie Morrison is a strong Mohawk wife and mother from the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake. For nearly twenty years, she has been an employee of Caisse Populaire Kahnawake. As a conscientious local advocate who thoroughly enjoys working for her community, she is also a member of the Action Team for the Food Sovereignty Group of Kahnawake.

Melanie has been an activist for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people since 2006, when her sister Tiffany Morrison went missing and whose remains were found in 2010, a murder that remains unsolved to this day. She uses her lived experience to speak at conferences across the country on policing to emphasize the need for systemic changes in the way cases are handled, including the 2016 Justice Practitioners Summit on Missing and Murdered Women and Girls in Canada, and the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association in 2018.

Melanie’s relentless drive and resilience have led her to advocate passionately on behalf of impacted families and survivors. She was a member of the National Family Advisory Circle for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, guiding the Kepec-Quebec supplementary report and the forensic team. In addition, she was the Lead Facilitator for her healing circle’s “Women are Sisters” project in 2019.

Melanie’s years of advocacy work have earned her recognition, including receiving the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2017, and being featured in the Amnesty International Francophone “Writes for Rights” campaign in 2018. Now, as a member of the National Family and Survivors Circle, Melanie hopes her work will engender changes that ensure no other family has to go through what hers did.

Tanya Debassige is Ojibwe and Odawa from Mnidoo Mnising, Manitoulin Island. She was born and raised on her Anishinabek traditional territory within the Robison Huron Treaty, and is the mother of two amazing grown children and a proud grandmother. As the granddaughter of a residential school survivor and having attended an Indian Day School in her formative years of her life, she has learned resilience, patience and tenacity.

As an impacted family member, and an impacted community member who has witnessed the results of systemic racism and violence, Tanya uses her lived experience to advocate for families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people, and survivors of gender- and race-based violence. After finding challenges in accessing resources, she now helps impacted families and survivors navigate provincial, federal, and First Nations programs.

Tanya ensures her advocacy and teaching is rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, which she credits to her parents. Her father, Adam Debassige, instilled in Tanya the importance of education, and now, despite overcoming learning disabilities, Tanya holds two degrees. As a key part of her family’s healing, Tanya’s mother, Lorraine, is a firm believer in language in ceremony after overcoming the mentality of needing to hide her cultural practices. These values have allowed Tanya to be a better advocate and a better educator in providing information to other families and survivors.

Now, as a member of the National Family and Survivors Circle, Tanya is a solutions-focused change agent educating the world that Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people are sacred. Her fervent hope is that the 231 Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry’s Final Report are implemented, and that every Canadian understands their responsibility in ending gender- and race-based violence.