Dr. Brown is the former Director of the Institute of Aboriginal Health in the College of Health Disciplines and the Indigenous Doctoral Program in the Department of Educational Studies at The University of British Columbia where he wrote his Doctoral Thesis entitled: Making the Classroom a Healthy Place: The Develop of Affective Competency in Aboriginal Pedagogy. He is the Co-author of The Sacred Tree, an educational curriculum based in Aboriginal values and epistemology.

Lee has also contributed to the Round Lake Native Healing Centre in Vernon, BC during the last Thirty years in a number of capacities including clinical supervisor and currently as a cultural resource to the centre. He has been the keynote speaker at over one hundred Aboriginal conferences. He has been an invited to share his knowledge of culture and healing in over five hundred indigenous communities in North America.

Lee has developed a theory of holistic emotional education that is predicated upon six principles of emotional competency that arise out of his research in the area of affective education and learning. Lee also facilitates the annual Emotional Education Conference and is a co-founder of the Global Emotional Education Association. He is published in Academic Journals on the subject of Emotional Education including the Canadian Journal of Native Education and AlterNative: A New Zealand International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship, and has also served as the guest editor of the UBC Educational Leadership Journal.

Laylee Rohani is a partner at Cook Roberts LLP Law Firm in Victoria, BC. She practices in the areas of corporate and commercial transactions, commercial lending, real estate and development, estate planning and administration. Her clients include private companies and businesses, financial institutions, developers, government bodies, and individuals requiring general legal advice and representation.

Laylee aims to provide practical and goal-oriented advice to her clients and believes strongly in supporting organizations and activities that advance the process of building healthy and vibrant communities.

She has extensive experience in board governance, is currently a director of the Vancouver Island Counselling Centre for Immigrants and Refugees (VICCIR), is a past board Chair, Board of Governors for Camosun College, and past director, Island Community Mental Health (formerly Capital Mental Health Association).

Dr. Patrick Slobodian is a family physician with 40 years of varied medical service. With an MD from the University of Alberta, Dr Slobodian completed his training at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, BC. Upon finishing, he had the great honour to act as the first ongoing physician at the newly established ‘Namgis Health Centre in ‘Yalis (Alert Bay, BC), where he served for three years. This experience marked the beginning of a lifelong dedication to building relationships with and providing medical care to Indigenous and remote communities.

In 1985, he moved with his family to the Southern African nation of Lesotho, where he volunteered with the Lesotho Flying Doctor Service and travelled by single-engine plane to provide care to mountain villages. After returning to Victoria to family practice, Dr. Slobodian became a founding member of the Victoria Vanuatu Physician Project in 1991. This volunteer group provided continual medical service to the remote island community of Tanna, in the South Pacific, for almost three decades. In 1993, Dr Slobodian along with his wife and children lived on the island for eight months. He returned twice, first in 1995 with ‘Namgis hereditary chief Christopher Cook Jr., and again in 1997 with Chief Cook and a small intercultural collective that included people from Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Yupik nations. This ‘Journey of Teechma’ travelled across Tanna as well as Maori communities in Aotearoa (New Zealand), meeting with local leaders and sharing their personal experiences of cultural strengths and challenges associated with the impacts of colonization.

Dr Slobodian was medical director of the James Bay Community Project, an innovative medical clinic in Victoria, where he practiced family medicine for 14 years. Most recently, he has worked as a hospitalist (hospital-based physician) for close to two decades, primarily at the Victoria General Hospital. Over the years, Dr Slobodian has continued his close relationship with the people of ‘Yalis, particularly through the privilege of volunteering in the Big House kitchen.

I am First Nations from a small community in Northwestern British Columbia called New Aiyansh. We are the Nisga'a Nation who have a treaty since May 11, 2000. I have lived in Richmond BC for the last four years, having previously lived in Terrace BC. I am the CEO of a nonprofit organization that serves 1,900 Nisga'as in the Greater Vancouver Area.

I have 15 years of experience as an Accounting Manager for a corporate group of companies in Fishing, Forestry, Telecommunications, and Tourism, as well as five years in government fund acocunting. In 2015 I obtained a Certified Aboriginal Financial Manager certificate from Aboriginal Financial Officers of Canada. I am currently enrolled in the Weekend MBA Sustainable and Innovation Program at the University of Victoria, and plan to complete in November 2024.