Pauline Lalonde Pronouns: She/Elle
Pauline Lalonde is a member of the Sachigo Lake First Nation in Northwestern Ontario. She currently lives off-reserve with her husband of 33 years Yves Lalonde and has two daughters Dominique and Caroline and is Grandmother (Kokum) to Genaviève who is 10 and her newborn brother Rafael. Pauline is the Great-great-grand-daughter of Jack Fiddler who you can read up on in Wikipedia, Great-grand-daughter to Henry Fiddler and Jimmy Thunder and part of Treaty 9. Her Grandfather Gilbert Thunder was a well-respected Chief and also healer and his wife Mary Thunder was one of the first female Band Councillors.
Pauline’s spiritual name signifies “Young Tree Woman Standing on the Water’s Edge”. She is Oji-Cree, a Cree Nation Spiritual Pipe Carrier, member of the Bear clan and practicing Medewin healer, teacher and helper. She offers her services to those in need of healing and every year travels long distances to join hands with her fellow Anishnawbe brothers and sisters in bringing healing to remote Indigenous communities often accompanied by her daughters and grandchildren so that they too are taught in the ways of her ancestors.
Pauline served a brief period in the Canadian Air Force in 1988-1989, and since 1990 has been with the Federal Public Service – over 32 years. She began her career at the Privy Council Office before moving onto DFO in 1997 where she has spent the last 25 years. She fulfilled a number of roles from Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister, to Senior Adviser, Partnerships within Habitat Management and Oceans and managed several DFO Aboriginal Programs for over a decade. She then moved on to a regulatory stream with Conservation and Protection (C&P) as Chief, Performance, Planning and Governance before taking on a regional assignment with Ontario-Prairies and Arctic Regions as Senior Strategic Advisor to the Regional Director, C&P. Pauline joined Elections Canada in June of 2022 as their new Director of Indigenous Reconciliation and Inclusion and is currently leading a review of Indigenous services and programs, a 2-year project.
Pauline has helped many immigrants and refugee families in her local community getting settled in Canada and navigate through the government system, teaching them English/French and about our values and history as Indigenous peoples/Canadians, especially the children and helping them heal from all the trauma, war and violence that they experienced and continue to experience albeit from afar.
