- Leonard Marchand
Leonard Stephen Marchand, PC, CM (born
November 16 1933 ) is a former Canadian politician. He was the first person ofFirst Nations ethnicity to serve in the federal cabinet, and was the firstStatus Indian to serve as aMember of Parliament .Marchand was born in
Vernon, British Columbia as a member of theOkanagan Indian Band . Anagronomist by training, he left his profession in the mid-1960s to work with the North American Indian Brotherhood. His work in native affairs took him toOttawa to lobby on aboriginal issues, and he was hired as a special assistant to two successive Cabinet ministers.He entered politics and was elected to the
Canadian House of Commons in the 1968 election as a Liberal Party candidate for theBritish Columbia riding of Kamloops-Cariboo. He defeated high-profile Progressive Conservative candidateE. Davie Fulton .He became
parliamentary secretary toJean Chrétien , who was theMinister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and persuaded Prime MinisterPierre Trudeau to begin land settlement negotiations between the federal government and theFirst Nations .In
1976 , Marchand was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of State for small business. In1977 , he was promoted to Minister of the Environment, and held the post until his and the government's defeat in the 1979 election.Marchand returned to British Columbia where he became administrator for the Nicola Valley Indian Administration. In
1984 , he was appointed to theCanadian Senate , the second Aboriginal Canadian to be appointed (the first wasJames Gladstone ). Marchand persuaded the Upper House to establish the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, on which Marchand served as chairman.He retired from the Senate in
1998 at the age of 64, eleven years ahead of the mandatory retirement age, in order to spend more time in British Columbia.In
1999 , he was made a Member of theOrder of Canada .External links
* [http://www.elections.ca/eca/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=97&lang=e&frmPageSize=&textonly=false Leonard Marchand: The first Status Indian elected to Canada's Parliament]
* [http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/key/bio.asp?Language=E&query=356&s=M Federal Political Biography from the Library of Parliament]
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