Robert-Falcon Ouellette

This one of the first votes by an MP in the 42nd Parliament to vote against their party.

His namesake was his mother's younger brother Robert-Falcon Green who died in 1961 at age 9.

Ouellette was raised primarily by his mother, Sharon, a poorly educated woman with a history of depression.

His mother was born in Tottenham, North London and moved from England to Canada in 1974.

Ouellette grew up in poor conditions, often going hungry, and as a child he once spent a summer homeless in Winnipeg sleeping in city parks.

Determined to change her son's future, Ouellette's mother insisted that he take the admissions test for the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School, an elite private school.

After Ouellette was admitted, his mother paid for his tuition by taking out a loan she could not afford to pay back.

Robert-Falcon Ouellette (born November 22, 1979) is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Winnipeg Centre in the House of Commons of Canada from 2015 to 2019.

Ouellette earned a Bachelor of Arts in music from the University of Calgary in 2001.

In 2004 and 2007 he earned a Master's in Music and a Master's in Education from Laval University.

In 2005, Ouellette ran for a city council seat for Quebec City Council, but lost by 170 votes.

From 2007 to 2010 he was appointed a Company Commander in the 5e ambulance du campagne or 5th Field Ambulance (the medical service) where he was responsible for helping to run the base hospital.

He retired from the Royal Canadian Navy after nearly two decades of service with the rank of Petty Officer 1st class and remains as part of the Primary Reserves in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles as a Warrant Officer.

In 2011 he completed his PhD in anthropology, also from Laval University in Quebec City.

He was only the second indigenous person in the 350-year history of UL to earn a PhD. While attending university in Quebec City he was also working full time in the Canadian Army, which required him to complete his course material at night or occasionally in the field.

While in Quebec City he learned to fluently speak, write and read French, after having been posted to the Royal 22e Regiment, a French-Canadian military unit.

He moved to Winnipeg in 2011 from Quebec City after he was appointed as director of the Aboriginal Focus Programs at the University of Manitoba.

He was also the first Member of Parliament who concurrently served as a non-commissioned member of the Canadian Forces and the first MP since the end of the second World War who served concurrently.

He has also been a two-time candidate for Mayor of Winnipeg in the 2014 Winnipeg municipal election and the 2022 Winnipeg municipal election.

He is of Cree, Métis, French and English descent; Ouellette is a veteran of over 25 years in the Canadian Forces and was a community organizer and academic administrator before his entry into politics.

He has also completed a full Sundance cycle at the Sprucewoods Sundance under David Blacksmith.

Ouellette is from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, 30 minutes south of Battleford, Saskatchewan.

He was raised in Calgary.

His father, Jimmy is mixed Cree and Métis and from the Red Pheasant First Nation, located south of North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

Ouellette's father was a student in the Canadian Indian residential school system and an alcoholic who was sometimes absent.

Ouellette finished third in the 2014 Winnipeg mayoral election.

He had run on a platform of dedicated to making Winnipeg a Child Friendly City (UNICEF model), Rail Relocation, Light Rail Transit, bridging economic divides, racial inequality, infrastructure funding and campaign finance reform.

Shortly after his defeat, he declared that he was developing a business plan to open a Winnipeg university catering to indigenous post-secondary students to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous peoples.

He currently works at Yellowquill College in Winnipeg where they recently obtained degree granting status from the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council.

On May 3, 2022, Ouellette announced a second run for Mayor of Winnipeg in the 2022 Winnipeg mayoral election.

He ran on a platform of crime reduction, better city transit and lower fees, a Child Friendly City policy, dealing with the mental health and addictions crisis and fiscal responsibility.

He was also the first First Nations person to serve on the House of Commons Standing Committee of Finance from 2015-2017.

In the 2015 election, Ouellette took over 55 per cent of the vote and defeated longtime NDP MP Pat Martin in Winnipeg Centre.

Ouellette resigned his position with the University of Manitoba in July 2015 to focus on his campaign.

After his election, Ouellette was considered a leading candidate for the position of Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Ouellette withdrew from the race to be Speaker of the House of Commons after making comments at a Winnipeg town hall meeting stating the position comes with "great influence" over the Prime Minister to the extent of calling the Prime Minister to the Speaker's Chair to address constituent's concerns.

Ouellette was known for voting according to his citizens wishes saying "I was elected to be the voice of the citizens of Winnipeg to Ottawa and not the voice of Ottawa to my citizens."

In 2016 he was the sole dissenting voice voting against C-14 Euthanasia Bill that was being voted on in the House of Commons.

By 2017 He had voted 17 times against government legislation becoming the second highest total in Canadian modern Parliamentary history.

By 2019 this was at 21 votes.