Reflections on the Service of Indigenous Veterans Panel
TORONTO – October 30, 2024 – On November 8, 2024, we mark the 30th anniversary of Indigenous Veterans Day. Historica Canada invites you to join us for Reflections on the Service of Indigenous Veterans, an online panel with the Memory Project, on Thursday, November 7, 2024, at 1 PM EST. It will feature three Indigenous veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces, moderated by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais, a Cree and Gitxsan journalist. Register here.
This event will be in English with French captioning (generated by AI).
Panel members:
Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais is a Cree and Gitxsan journalist and multi-award-winning broadcaster who’s been on Canada’s media scene for more than two decades. She’s worked at CTV News Winnipeg as a daily news reporter where her stories aired on CTV Newsnet/News Channel, CTV National News, and CNN. She also worked for many years as an announcer on NCI FM and as a correspondent for APTN National News where she garnered much attention for her award-winning series about The Sacred Sundance.
She is proud of her final journalistic work with the network, Breaching the Sacred—an investigative piece exploring the tragic reality of Indigenous women living with addictions and using while pregnant. She was honoured to win first place for Historica Canada’s Canadian Aboriginal Writing Challenge for her play, Notay Kiskintamowin “Wanting to Know”, the same year she was named a National Aboriginal Role Model by the Governor General of Canada and graduated from the University of Winnipeg where she founded the Indigenous Course Requirement and is recognized as Notable Alumni. Shaneen is proud to have served as the Indigenous Music Development Coordinator at Manitoba Music from 2018-2024, and she is now the Program Director and Morning Show Host at CFNR.
Specialist Fourth Rank (retired) Randi Gage is the founder of Indigenous Veterans Day (8 November), a traditional Indigenous Knowledge Keeper, U.S. Army Vietnam Era veteran, Charter Vice-President of the National Aboriginal Veterans Association, Charter Secretary/Treasurer of Manitoba Indigenous Veterans Association, and a Memory Project speaker.
Lieutenant Commander (retired) Bill Shead is a member of the Peguis First Nation. He served 36 years in the Regular and Reserve Force of the Royal Canadian Navy initially attending College Militaire Royal de St. Jean. He is a graduate of Dalhousie University and the Canadian Forces Staff College. He served as Mayor of Selkirk, Manitoba; Prairie Regional Director General for Veterans Affairs Canada; and Chief Executive Officer of Neeginan Centre. Currently, Bill serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Neeginan Centre, Vice Chair of Neeginan Education, Training, and Employment Service, and Indspire – a charity supporting Indigenous education. As well, he is Secretary-Treasurer of the Prince Medals Committee, a Governor of the Manitoba Division of the Canadian Corp of Commissionaires, and Co-chair of the Friends of the Peguis-Selkirk Treaty working to erect a treaty monument on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building in 2024.
Major (retired) Bob Crane is Blackfoot from Siksika First Nation and is a veteran of UN missions in Israel/Syria (UNDOF) and Iran/Iraq (UNIIMOG). He is a Gulf War veteran and has served in the Arctic and in the United States on exchange duty. He also served in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. During his time in the military, he was the senior serving Indigenous member in the Canadian forces.