Intermediate Braiding Strands: Related-world Strategic Planning - October 2024

Harley Crowshoe’s ancestry is Blackfoot and originates from the Piikani Nation Reserve in southern Alberta. 

Harley has extensive Aboriginal Policing experience with First Nations people in Alberta and British Columbia. Throughout his RCMP career he held supervisory positions as a Detachment Commander in “K” and “E” Divisions, as well as investigating serious crimes. After more than 20 years of service with the RCMP he retired at the rank of Staff Sgt. 

Harley had the opportunity to participate in a major project that developed and built Canada’s second diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. While employed by Diavik Diamond Mines he developed policies and programs for Site Security. 

Harley joined the Aboriginal Policing Directorate as the Regional Manager, responsible for Alberta and North West Territories. This provided him the opportunity to continue working closely with the First Nations communities in Alberta and NWT. 

Harley has worked for AHS for many years, first serving the AHS Wisdom Council as chair; then the AHS South Zone as the Indigenous Health Senior Advisor; the AHS South Sector as Indigenous Health Provincial Director; and now continues to support AHS health projects as an Indigenous Health Advisor. 

He is currently working parttime with Piikani Health Service as a Accreditation Coordinator. 

Harley is a board member sitting on the Windy Slopes Health Foundation and Fresh Start Recovery Centre and recently he has been appointed on the National Advisory Committee on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves. 

Harley is a recipient of the Order of Canada, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of Canadian Confederation, and a 25 year service award from Public Service Canada. Harley was presented a soapstone sculpture and sacred eagle feather in recognition of contributions to the First Nations people of Canada and was inducted as an Honorary Chief of the Piikani (Blackfoot) Nation - including traditional transfer of a sacred eagle headdress

Elizabeth is Algonquin-Irish (Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg First Nation). She is a community builder, theatre artist and arts producer, self-professed policy wonk and mother of two. She holds a Bachelor degree (with High Honours) from Carleton and studied Education/Drama at McGill. She just recently took on the job of Ottawa River Keeper, as champion and collective voice for the Ottawa River watershed, providing leadership and inspiration to protect, promote and improve its ecological health. Previous to this she was Director of Partnerships and Coordination in Lands and Economic Development supporting the work of the National Indigenous Economic Development Board and Director of Inuit Relations at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.

For the past over 14 years she has been a faculty member at the Banff Centre. A federal public servant for close to 20 years, highlights of her career include work on the Aboriginal Veterans Scholarship Fund, on Comprehensive Community Planning and Sustainable Development, the transfer of the Igloo Tag for the certification of Inuit Art, the direct funding for housing in Nunavik, Inuvialuit and Nunatsiavut and the establishment of the Inuit-Crown partnership Committee and work on the Advisory Committee for the permanent Arctic Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Elizabeth believes in civic engagement and creative-communal problem solving and sits on many community-based boards and committees.
 
Elizabeth also has trained in theatre and has been a member of the Ottawa based Shakespeare company called A company of Fools as well as the one show wonder Aboriginal Theatre Company Code Red. She is also an Arts festival producer and performer.  
 
She lives ‎in Wakefield, Quebec along the Te-nagàdino-zìbi with her husband Alasdair and two children Calum 12 and Mairi 10.  
 

Murray Dion is an executive, entrepreneur, strategic consultant, lecturer, and visual thinker with a passion for action and results.  Murray began his career in radio and television and migrated to the information systems industry in engineering, projects management, business development, and strategic consulting.  For over twenty years, he has been fully engaged with Indigenous communities across Canada in areas such as Indigenous entrepreneurship as the co-owner of a groundbreaking Indigenous firm, economic development, policing, digital health, organizational development, and leadership development.  Murray has been a faculty member at The Banff Centre since 1999.  He was also a faculty member in The Logistics Institute’s Executive Leadership Program for five years.