March 16, 2017
Kimberly R. Murray is a member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation. She is the Province of Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Aboriginal Justice. She has been in this role since April 1, 2015. Prior to this position, Ms. Murray was the Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada where she worked to ensure that survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools system were heard and remembered, and to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
From 1995 to 2010, Ms. Murray was staff lawyer and then Executive Director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto (ALST). She has appeared before the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada on Aboriginal legal issues. She has acted as counsel or co-counsel on numerous Coroner Inquests, was Instructing Counsel for ALST at the Ipperwash Inquiry and Co-Counsel for ALST at the Goudge Inquiry and the Frank Paul Inquiry in British Columbia.
Ms. Murray is the recipient of the Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice Through Law; the City of Toronto’s Aboriginal Affairs Access, Equity and Human Rights Award; the Law Foundation’s Guthrie Award; the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Laura Legge Award; and she will be receiving the 2017 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice. She was also an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where she co-facilitated the Aboriginal Land Resource and Governance Intensive program. Recently, the Indigenous Bar Association granted Kimberly the Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel (I.P.C.) designation.