Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

Mary Ellen Elizabeth Turpel-Lafond (born February 1963) is a Canadian lawyer, law professor, judge, and legislative advocate for children's rights.

Turpel-Lafond worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, D.C. and served as a legal and constitutional adviser to aboriginal leaders.

She has taught at Dalhousie University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Notre Dame, and has served as a judge on the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan.

Turpel-Lafond was born in February 1963 to William and Shirley Turpel.

She has three older sisters.

While Turpel-Lafond has stated that she was born and raised on the First Nation reserve of the Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, a 2022 report by CBC News stated that Turpel-Lafond was likely born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Turpel-Lafond has stated that there was alcoholism and violence in her family's home and that she experienced poverty and sexual abuse in her youth.

Turpel-Lafond received a bachelor of arts degree from Carleton University in 1982.

She holds a law degree from Osgoode Hall at York University and received a diploma in international law from the University of Cambridge in 1989.

From 1989 to 1996, Turpel-Lafond was an assistant professor of law at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University from 1989 to 1996.

She spoke at other universities, and held the position of Aboriginal Scholar at the University of Saskatchewan.

Turpel-Lafond was a member of the bar in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

As a practising lawyer, Turpel-Lafond appeared before all levels of courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

Turpel-Lafond worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and served as a legal and constitutional adviser to aboriginal leaders.

During the negotiations over the Charlottetown Accord, a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada, Turpel-Lafond was a legal and constitutional advisor to Ovide Mercredi, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Turpel-Lafond and Mercredi co-wrote a book, In the Rapids: Navigating the Future of First Nations.

As of February 2, 2024, Turpel-Lafond was listed as "non-practising" by the Law Society of British Columbia, the regulatory body for lawyers in that province.

Time Magazine named Turpel-Lafond as one of the "100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow" in 1994; in 1999, Time honored her as one of the "Top 20 Canadian Leaders for the 21st Century".

Turpel-Lafond also served as British Columbia's first Representative for Children and Youth.

Turpel-Lafond was awarded a doctorate of law from Harvard Law School in 1997.

In 1998, Turpel-Lafond was appointed as a Provincial Court judge in Saskatchewan.

At the time, she was thought to be the first Treaty Indian to be appointed as a Provincial Court judge in Saskatchewan.

In 2015, Turpel-Lafond called for the government to hire immediately at least 250 social workers for indigenous children, in order to provide needed services and protect vulnerable children.

Turpel-Lafond left her position as Representative for Children and Youth in 2016.

In 2017, Turpel-Lafond was said to be under consideration as a potential appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.

After serving as a judge for eight years, Turpel-Lafond was appointed as British Columbia's first Representative for Children and Youth.

In that capacity, she issued 93 reports and made 200 recommendations.

In 2017, Turpel-Lafond filed a lawsuit against the province of British Columbia which claimed that the government broke a verbal agreement to provide her with 18 months worth of pension credits for each year of service.

The statement of claim said the province had a history of animosity with Turpel-Lafond.

In 2018, Turpel-Lafond became a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

She was later named the inaugural director of the University of British Columbia's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.

Until 2022, Turpel-Lafond – who has also used the Indigenous name "aki-kwe" – was celebrated as one of the most accomplished First Nations scholars in the history of Canada.

However, her statement that she is a Treaty Indian was disputed in an October 2022 CBC News report that found major discrepancies between available documents and Turpel-Lafond's own statements about her ancestry.

Following the CBC News report, Turpel-Lafond left the University of British Columbia; in addition, various honors and awards that she had received were revoked or relinquished.

In a 2018 curriculum vitae, Turpel-Lafond stated that she had received a Master of Laws (LLM) from Cambridge.

When asked by reporters, the University of Cambridge stated that the diploma is a substantially different credential from the LL.M. degree.

Turpel-Lafond's 2018 curriculum vitae also indicated that she received her doctorate from Harvard in 1990; however, the 2022 CBC News report stated that she did not receive that degree until 1997.

Before a 2022 CBS News cast doubt on her statements of Indian ancestry, Turpel-Lafond was celebrated as one of the most accomplished First Nations scholars in the history of Canada.

She was a tenured law professor at Dalhousie University, Faculty of Law.

Turpel-Lafond taught law at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Toronto, and other universities.