Event

Octaviana V. Trujillo

JPAC Chair

Octaviana V. Trujillo (Yaqui), Ph.D., is the 2023 chair of the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), having been first appointed as a member of JPAC by US President Barack Obama in 2015. She is founding Chair and Professor Emerita in the Department of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University and the former chairwoman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona. She has spent her career advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and developing educational courses, initiatives, and programs to support Tribal Nation Building and Indigenous communities, especially with regard to sustaining Indigenous languages, cultures and lifeways, and working with Indigenous youth.

She is a current Soros Equality Fellow and the 2021 American Educational Research Association, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Research awardee for outstanding scholarship. She is also an advisory board member to Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras, whose mission is to affirm the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their right to self-determination, their collective human and civil rights, the rights of sovereignty and the protection of sacred sites, and their right to free and unrestricted movement across international borders. Trujillo also served as an active national member of the American Friends Service Committee and Farmworker Justice, working to foster community-based resources for promoting social justice.

Her extensive international experience as researcher, mediator, and advisor on the topics of human and Indigenous rights includes participation in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and serving on the EPA Governmental Advisory Committee, which helps to shape US policies that are intended to improve environmental and health conditions in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the Global Diversity Foundation, which promotes agricultural, biological, and cultural diversity around the world through research, training and social action.

Kathy Hodgson-Smith

TEKEG Facilitator

Kathy L. Hodgson-Smith is a Saskatoon lawyer who practices criminal and Aboriginal law, as well as on behalf of the Métis Legal Research Education Foundation. She has litigated in all levels of court including the Provincial Court and Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatchewan, the Courts of Appeal in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Federal Court of Appeal, and as co-counsel at the Supreme Court of Canada.

She has worked on various national policy initiatives for the Métis National Council (MNC), including the Aboriginal Human Resources Development Agreement Strategy, Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtables, the Kelowna Accord, and Post-Powley. She has also given evidence at the Canadian Aboriginal Affairs Standing Committee on the effects of McIvor decision on the Métis. She has researched and presented on Métis Aboriginal rights law and traditional knowledge at local, provincial, national, and international forums and conducted research for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Canadian Education Association and the Canada Council on Learning and conducts traditional land-use studies for the Métis.

Internationally, she also represents the MNC on the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Committee on the Protection of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and Genetic Resources, and on the Canadian Delegation to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

She has chaired a number of committees, including the MNC National Research Strategy and Urban Aboriginal Strategy committee, National Environment Committee, in addition to the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee, which established a national standard for the operation of Mètis Nation Registries.

Kakwiranó:ron Cook

Officer, Indigenous Affairs

Kakwiranó:ron Cook belongs to the Akwesasne Kanien'kehá:ka and Oglala Lakota. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu and a Master of Business Administration from McGill University and HEC Montréal. Previously, Kakwiranó:ron worked as Senior Advisor on Indigenous Community and Relations at Sobeys Inc. and as Indigenous Outreach Administrator for McGill University. A life-long ambassador for Indigenous ways of learning and knowing, he brings firsthand expertise on building up awareness, appreciation and celebration of Indigeneity, as well as to our responsibilities to the lands, waters and each other.

LinkedIn: Kakwiranoron Cook

Jorge Daniel Taillant

CEC Executive Director

Jorge Daniel Taillant serves as the CEC’s Executive Director since August of 2022.

He is a life-long global advocate for human rights and environmental protection. His career spans several decades, working with international development agencies, as an advisor to governments, leading innovative civil society organizations and networks, and with disadvantaged communities to tackle some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

He has spear-headed incisive global initiatives to link human rights and environmental advocacy, pushing for more effective public policies, stronger legislation and greater corporate accountability and respect for human rights and environmental sustainability.

During the past decade, he has turned his focus to tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, advocating for immediate actions to aggressively phase out the most intense climate pollutants, such as methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and tropospheric ozone (O₃), while promoting inclusive, equitable and resilient adaptation for the most climate-vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.