Alika Lafontaine

Dr. Alika Lafontaine is an Indigenous physician of Cree and Anishinaabe heritage from Southern Saskatchewan/Treaty 4 territory. He is an award-winning physician, speaker, alignment consultant, and the first Indigenous physician listed by the Medical Post as one of Canada’s 50 Most Powerful Doctors.

After completing a Bachelor of Science through First Nations University of Canada, he completed his Medical Doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan followed by a five-year specialist fellowship in Anesthesiology. During his fellowship, Lafontaine became CBC’s “Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister,” winning the competition with a platform focused on reconciling the Treaty relationship between Canada’s Indigenous Peoples and Canadians.

Dr. Lafontaine remains the youngest recipient of the Indspire Award and continues to be recognized. In 2015, he was selected as a recipient of the Canadian Medical Association Young Leaders Award and in 2017 he became the inaugural recipient of the Public Policy Forum Emerging Indigenous Leader Award.

Dr. Lafontaine lectures across Canada on the role that bias, discrimination and racism has on patient care and is a champion for Indigenous health transformation with the Indigenous Health Alliance, a collaboration led by three Indigenous Territorial organizations – the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakinak and Nishnawbe Aski Nation – that works with national medical organizations and health decision-makers to achieve practical implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action on Health.

Dr. Lafontaine currently serves on the board of HealthCareCAN, the Council of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and the board of governors of First Nations University of Canada. He is an elected member of the representative forum of the Alberta Medical Association, Northern Medical Lead for the Aboriginal Health Program (Alberta Health Services) and immediate past-president of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada.

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