Community Heroes

By day, he’s a police officer; by night, a DNA detective. Dean Lerat is an RCMP Staff Sergeant at Fort Qu’appelle, Saskatchewan. But when he’s not on duty, he helps Sixties Scoop survivors find their families, using DNA testing kits, ancestry websites, public documents and other resources. It all started with a curiosity about his own family tree and history.

Up until two years ago, youth in Kinngait, Nunavut didn’t have much to do. The Inuit hamlet of about 1400 people had zero hockey games, art classes or social activities. That is, until Joanne Weedmark came along. She made it her job to keep the kids busy. As director of recreation, Joanne is bringing positive change to her community. Her hard work caught the attention of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association, which selected her as its “Emerging Leader of the Year” in 2022 at the young age of 24.

Dr. Courtney Leary is originally from Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba. When she was growing up there, she dreamt of becoming a doctor. After graduating from university she returned home to become Norway House’s first practicing doctor.

Respect, reciprocity, reconciliation, and relevance are the basis of an organization started by a group of youth in 2014. Jess Bolduc is Anishinaabe-French from Baawating and credits the Idle No More Movement for inspiring her own determination to bring change to her community and start the 4Rs Youth Movement. The organization centers and supports the work that Indigenous young people are doing in their communities, thereby creating an infrastructure for the next generation of changemakers.