JRI’s Council on Knowledge is a group of Indigenous community members from First Nations across Canada offering expert advice related to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis issues, plans, priorities and needs. Their role includes guiding the development of equitable and respectful policies, programs, and initiatives, ensuring JRI’s projects are culturally relevant, promoting reconciliation, and supporting Indigenous economic participation in JRI’s projects and ventures.
Council Members
Gary Johnston
Gary Johnston is a resident of Barrie, ON and is a Knowledge Keeper, Sacred Pipe Carrier, Storyteller, Visual Artist, Producer, Songwriter, and Indigenous Recording Artist from Couchiching First Nation, Treaty #3.
Gary also shares with audiences that he recognizes his genealogy to Cape Croker First Nation Neyaashiinigmiing-Reserve 27.
(Painted Sky) is his Indigenous name that was given to him by Elder Dark Sky from Peguis First Nation, Manitoba.
Gary is Saulteaux, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and of Potawatomi descent. He is one of the last descendants of Chief Nawash who rode with Chief Tecumseh in the battle of 1812. Historical battle that took place in Moraviantown just outside of London, ON.
He has shared with many audiences large and small, by expressing his lived experiences, his music & traditional teachings and wisdom.
He is a former Board member of Canadian Mental Health Association Truth and Reconciliation Committee serving in Toronto, Ontario.
Gary also worked as a Mobile Crisis Response Specialist CMHA’s Toronto Community Crisis Service for 3 years in city of Toronto serving Indigenous and Non Indigenous communities.
He provides many audiences his empowering stories by storytelling and sharing by providing land based cultural training about the Indigenous culture and teachings through an indigenous lens and perspective to those within many communities across Turtle Island.
Luana Shirt
Luana Harper-Shirt is a Nêhiyaw Iskwew (Plains Cree, Anishinaabe kwe) originally from Treaty 6 territory and currently living in the Simcoe region. She is a mother of two, an Indigenous cultural knowledge carrier, educator, and curriculum writer.
Luana is a classically trained visual artist, Chartered Herbalist, and Indigenous language curriculum developer. Her work is deeply rooted in land-based teachings, ancestral knowledge, and lived experience.
She is dedicated to uplifting Indigenous ways of knowing, with a strong focus on women’s holistic health and wellness, Indigenous language revitalization, arts, and the strength of traditional medicines. Through her teaching, writing, and creative practice, Luana works to create spaces of healing, remembrance, and empowerment for present and future generations.
Shirley Gillis-Kendall
Baedahben Nemki Kwe -First Light of the Morning Thunder Woman, is a citizen of Alderville First Nation and a proud member of Turtle Clan. Her maternal ancestry is deeply rooted in the three communities-Tyendenaga, Six Nations and Oneida. Through her grandfather’s family she is a direct descendant of the Gray family – one of the four original families that became the community and later First Nation of Alderville. Her family carries the colonial history of residential school, Indian Day School and the Sixties
Scoop. With the reconnection to her biological family in 1969 – she realized a deep and profound sense of belonging that was the beginning of opening many doorways within the
richness and beauty of our cultural lifeways.
Shirley has worked for the Takaronto community and communities in the north for over forty years within Social Services and Indigenous Child Welfare. She has developed and implemented programs and services to support individuals, communities, and families as they reclaim, rebuild and sustain their continuum of health, healing, and wellness. Her body of work has been inclusive of all levels of service from front line to Executive Director in the Service of her People.
Shirley’s lifelong work of services is founded on the goal that all her People will be provided the opportunity to reclaim all their inherent rights within all the quadrants of the Medicine Wheel. Shirley lives in Tkaronto with her husband-grandson- also in the city and their beautiful daughter a few hours away. Shirley’s sisters, cousins, sister -friends and her beloved Auntie are held within her heart bundle always.
Brighton Johnston
Hello/Aanii, my name is Brighton Minogamiing Johnston. I am Anishinaabekwe from Chippewas of Nawash First Nation at Neyaashinigmiing (Reserve No. 27). I had the opportunity to work with the Indigenous Evaluation Network and Johnston’s Research, where I assisted Andrea with Indigenous-led evaluation initiatives.
My work included using Johnston’s Research tools, supporting data collection, and contributing to learning and knowledge-sharing connected to the Council of Knowledge. I approach this work with respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, relationship-building, and community priorities.