Biography: Kimberly Murray BA, LL.B, IPC
“I am honoured to have been entrusted with this important responsibility of being the Special Interlocutor. I am committed to supporting the work of Survivors and Indigenous communities to protect, locate, identify, repatriate, and commemorate the children who died while being forced to attend Indian Residential Schools. I pledge to do this work using my heart and my mind in a way that honours the memories of the children who never made it home.”
Kimberly Murray, BA, LL.B, IPC
Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools
Kimberly Murray is a member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation. She is currently the Executive Lead for the newly created Survivors’ Secretariat at the Six Nations of the Grand River, working to recover the missing children and unmarked burials at the Mohawk Institute.
Prior to this new role, Ms. Murray was the Province of Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice, from April 1, 2015, to August 2, 2021, where she was responsible for creating a unit to work with Indigenous communities on revitalizing their Indigenous laws and legal orders. In 2018-2019, Ms. Murray chaired the Expert Panel on Policing in Indigenous Communities, which produced the report Toward Peace Harmony, and Well-Being.
From 2010 to 2015, Ms. Murray was the Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada where she worked to ensure that Survivors of Canada’s residential school 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. She has appeared before all levels of courts on Indigenous legal issues. She has acted as counsel at numerous coroner inquests and public inquiries—including the Ipperwash Inquiry in Ontario and the Frank Paul Inquiry in British Columbia.
Ms. Murray is the recipient of numerous awards, including 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 Ontario’s Laura Legge Award and the 2017 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice. In 2015, the Indigenous Bar Association granted Ms. Murray the Indigenous Peoples Counsel (IPC) designation. Most recently, Ms. Murray was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal of Distinction in Public Administration.
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