Inherent Right to Indigenous Governance - May 2025

Randy Bottle is recognized and honoured as an Elder among local community leaders and agencies. He originates from the Blood Tribe First Nation and is from the Tall People Clan. After serving the Blood Tribe Band Council for 24 consecutive years, he has become a staple in the Calgary community.

Randy’s primary goal is to promote traditional spirituality through ceremony, storytelling, and sharing personal experiences. His primary work now focuses on urban aboriginal youth, helping them to better understand their identity and develop a better sense of belonging. As a fluent Blackfoot speaker, he plays a key role in preserving and passing on the language to urban aboriginal youth and the larger Blackfoot-speaking community.

Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe and an Associate Professor in Indigenous Governance. She is the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement at the University of Victoria. She received her PhD in American Studies and her B.A in American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research interests include Indigenous law and governance and Indigenous politics in the United States and Canada. She is the co-editor of Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories with Jill Doerfler and Niigaanwewidam Sinclair and is the co-author of the third and fourth edition of American Indian Politics and the American Political System with Dr. David E. Wilkins. Her research background includes collaborative work with Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada with the aim to advance the development and resurgence of Anishinaabe political structures and institutions that are informed and shaped by Anishinaabe philosophies, values, and teachings. She has also been awarded various SSHRC grants that entail projects examining Anishinaabe law and Governance, Community-Engaged research practices and Indigenous jurisdiction and infrastructure in the wake of extractive industry projects.

Daniel Voth is Métis from the Métis Nation of the Red River Valley. He is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation and several other provincial affiliates including the Otipemisiwak Métis Government (formerly the Métis Nation of Alberta). Raised in Winnipeg’s inner city and Manitoba’s Interlake region, his research focuses on the political relationships between Métis and First Nations people with particular attention to the way settler-imposed power structures and land dispossession undermine important gender orientations to governance. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, and served as the Director of the International Indigenous Studies Program from 2019 - 2022. He is also a co-convener of the Indigenous Relationality workshop with Drs. Matthew Wildcat, Shalene Jobin, Gina Starblanket, Jessie Loyer and PhD student Ryan Crosschild. Together they run the Prairie Relationality Network with a research focus on prairie Indigenous philosophers, the study and practice of relationality, and Indigenous political action. 

Daniel earned his Honours BA from the University of Winnipeg in 2007. With experience both inside and outside the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, Daniel returned to higher education and earned his PhD from UBC in 2015. In his time as the Director of the International Indigenous Studies Program he designed and implemented a new governance protocol for the program, was part of a team that compared Indigenous Studies programs in North America and the Pacific rim, and served as an expert external reviewer for other Indigenous Studies programs in Canada. From 2022-2023 Daniel held the Fulbright Research Chair in Indigenous Issues at San Diego State University. His research has been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the University of Toronto Law Journal, twice in Native American and Indigenous Studies, Canadian Journal of Urban Research, Wicazo Sa and several book chapters.