National Inuit Leader Mary Simon, President of ITK

Mary Simon is the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national organization representing Inuit from Nunavut, Nunavik in Northern Quebec, Nunatsiavut in Labrador and the Inuvialuit region of the Northwest Territories.

Ms Simon was born in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Quebec, on Nunavik’s Ungava Coast. She has devoted her life to achieving social justice for Inuit nationally and internationally, with a particular focus on children and youth, and the preservation of the Inuit language. In the environmental, economic and political arenas, she has been a leading advocate for Inuit cooperation.

She began her career in the early 1970s as a producer and announcer with CBC Northern Service. As a young woman, she held a series of executive positions with the Northern Quebec Inuit Association (NQIA) and Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now ITK). In the late 1970s, Ms Simon was elected First Vice-President and, subsequently, President of the NQIA’s successor, Makivik Corporation, the organization responsible for implementing the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the first comprehensive Inuit land claims agreement in Canada.

Ms Simon was one of the senior Inuit negotiators during the Canadian Constitutional discussions of the early 1980s, which led to the recognition of Aboriginal rights in the Constitution Act, 1982, as well as subsequent constitutional discussions, including the Charlottetown Accord. She went on to serve on the Executive Council of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC, now Inuit Circumpolar Council), the international body representing Inuit from Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia. She was elected President of ICC in 1986 and served two terms. She briefly served as a member of the Nunavut Implementation Commission in 1993 and was also Policy Co-Director of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

From 1994 to 2003, Ms Simon was Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs, becoming the first Inuk to hold an ambassadorial position. She was the principal architect of Canada’s northern policy. She negotiated the creation of an eight-country council, now known as the Arctic Council. During her Chairmanship of the Arctic Council and subsequently as the federal government’s Senior Arctic Official, she worked closely with the Council’s Permanent Participants, including indigenous groups in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Finland. Concurrently during her circumpolar position, she was the Canadian Ambassador to Denmark, Chair of the Joint Public Advisory Committee of NAFTA’s Commission on Environmental Cooperation, Chancellor of Trent University, and Councillor for the International Council for Conflict Resolution with the Carter Center, an American human rights organization. From 2004 to 2005, she served as Special Advisor to the Labrador Inuit Association on the development of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. 

Ms Simon has received many honours. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has been awarded the National Order of Quebec, the Gold Order of Greenland, the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, the Governor General’s 125th Commemorative Medal, the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the Symons Medal, and she has been inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame. She is a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America and of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. She has received honorary doctorate of law degrees from McGill, Carleton, Queen’s, Memorial, Guelph, and Trent universities, and was the founding Chairperson of the Arctic Children and Youth Foundation. She is currently serving her second term as President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.