Leanne Bellegarde honoured with Queen’s Council designation
- Angela Hill | January 17, 2018
Leanne Bellegarde’s career is about seeing the inclusion of Indigenous people and that work is getting noticed.
In the fall, Diversity Canada named Bellegarde as one of the Top 5 influential women in human resources in diversity and inclusion in Canada and recently was the announcement that Bellegarde is one of the 2017 recipients of a Queen’s Council designation in Saskatchewan.
Known as a QC, the designation is given to lawyers for their conduct and contributions to the legal profession and public service. It’s a closely held nomination and Bellegarde had no idea it was coming.
“I was momentarily speechless when the Minister of Justice called me,” said Bellegarde, who now works as the director of diversity and inclusion at Potash Corp (now Nutrien).
Bellegarde pointed to a time when “status Indians couldn’t even consult a lawyer over their grievances, and in fact if they achieved the education level of a lawyer and any sort of financial success, they would be enfranchised under the Indian Act, no longer able to call themselves an Indian and be forced to live away from reserves, their communities and their families.”
The QC carries a special meaning in that regard, she said.
Admitted to the bar in 1993, Bellegarde practiced law in a variety of areas from corporate to working on Treaty Land Entitlement settlements.
“I don’t know if it’s my place to be proud of her, but I am … I am terrifically proud,” said Jim Kerby, a Saskatoon-based lawyer, who Bellegarde articled under. She says she is forever grateful to Kerby for encouraging to turn her law degree into a profession.
Kerby said Bellegarde’s career path created a wonderful background and lead her to receiving the QC designation.
“She personally deserves everything that she has accomplished,” he said.
Originally from Peepeekisis Cree Nation, Bellegarde now calls Saskatoon home, but she says the journey navigating between an Indigenous and non-Indigenous world is an everyday experience as she works to find a balance that respects the identity and contributions of both.
As a child of a residential school survivor, and as a student of law who understands the impacts of colonialism and negative policies, Bellegarde said reconciliation is a daily reality for her.
“Reconciliation on a very personal level for me means trying to understand and forgive what has been so blindly, for so many Canadians, a part of their success, without regard to the impact on First Nations and Metis people in this country,” she said.
In her professional life, reconciliation is about, “trying to use the influence and the opportunity I have by working for a premiere company in a premiere industry in this province that is so influential, to show how First Nations and Métis people can contribute if given the opportunity.”
When asked if she could be considered a role model, Bellegarde said that is for others to say.
“I think that early on, my elders impressed upon me, as I struggled to understand what my role should be, that I had a responsibility to be the very best I could be at whatever it was I was doing.”
However, Bellegarde does have two pieces of advice for Indigenous youth.
“Just do it,” she said, adding that people need to get over self doubt and asking what if.
“Never give up,” she said is the second piece of advice.
“Persist even through tough times, event when you don’t think you are doing well, even if you don’t think it’s for you, persist.”