Panel Member Biographies

Kim Baird

Kim is the owner of Kim Baird Strategic Consulting and offers services in relation to First Nation policy, governance and economic development, as well as First Nation consultation, communication and engagement issues. 

Kim was the elected Chief of the Tsawwassen First Nation for six terms, from 1999-2012. She had the honour of negotiating and implementing British Columbia’s first urban treaty – signed on April 3, 2009 – and oversaw numerous economic and institutional development projects for Tsawwassen First Nation.

Kim was the first woman, who was not an MLA, in BC history to address the BC Legislature on October 15, 2007 when the British Columbia Treaty Legislation process was initiated.

Kim was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2014.  In addition, Kim has received a number of prestigious awards, including an Indspire Award for politics in 2015, an honorary doctorate degree from Simon Fraser University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University Distinguished Alumni Award, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, the National Aboriginal Women in Leadership Distinction Award, Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50 Award, and Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Award.

She is also a board member of the Vancouver Board of Trade, Clear Seas, Smithsonian Nation Museum of the American Indian, the Public Policy Forum,  Aboriginal Skills Group, and Chief Joe Mathias Scholarship Foundation.  She has served on the BC Aboriginal Business Investment Council.

As a first nation leader very passionate about First Nation issues, Kim is regularly asked to speak on First Nation matters, including on governance, treaty making, aboriginal rights and title, economic development, aboriginal relations, and women's issues.   Kim has spoken across the country and internationally on these topics.

Kim is a proud mother of three young girls and her ancestral name is Kwuntiltunaat.

Annette Trimbee

Annette Trimbee is the President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Winnipeg, located in downtown Winnipeg, on Treaty One territory in the heart of the Métis Nation.

The University of Winnipeg is a medium-sized university with approximately 10,000 full- and part-time students.  It is known for academic and research excellence, and its commitment to sustainability, having exceeded Kyoto targets by reducing GHG emissions 10 per cent below 1990 levels. The University is also known for its “Indigenization,” which is focused on implementing recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and integrating Indigenous perspectives and knowledge within the academy; and for its work with the surrounding community to help inner-city children in one of Canada’s poorest neighborhoods develop a university-bound identity. Key accomplishments include completing a university-wide strategic directions plan, the introduction of a three-year budget strategy, and development and approval of the Indigenous Course Requirement for all undergraduate students, among the first in Canada.     

In 2015, Annette served on a four-person panel, whose task was to review and make recommendations related to Alberta’s oil and gas royalty regime. In 2015, she was also named Co-Chair of the Lake Friendly Stewards Alliance by the Manitoba government. The goal of the Alliance is to create a broad base of support for and awareness of the challenges facing Manitoba’s lakes, especially Lake Winnipeg. 

Prior to her role at the University of Winnipeg, she was a Deputy Minister of several departments in the Alberta government, including Finance and Treasury Board, Service Alberta and Advanced Education and Technology.  Key accomplishments include Alberta Budget 2012 and 2013; the redesign of Alberta’s innovation system and creation of the Alberta Innovates Corporations, bringing Alberta post-secondary institutions together to plan and collaborate through Campus Alberta, and development of Alberta’s Health Policy Framework and Integrated Resource Management Policy Framework.

She holds a BSc from the University of Winnipeg, an MSc from the University of Manitoba and a PhD from McMaster University in Ecology.

Tony Penikett

Tony Penikett spent 25 years in public life, including two years at the House of Commons as Chief of Staff to federal New Democratic Party Leader Ed Broadbent; five terms in the Yukon Legislative Assembly; and two terms as Premier of Yukon. His government negotiated settlements of Yukon First Nation land claims and passed pioneering education, health, and language legislation, as well as organized Yukon 2000, a unique bottom-up economic planning process. 

Between 1997 and 2001, Penikett served as Deputy Minister of Negotiations and, later, Labour for the B.C. Government. In 2006, Douglas & McIntyre published his book, Reconciliation: First Nations Treaty Making. He is also the author of two films: The Mad Trapper for BBC TV/Time Life Films and La patrouille perdue, for ORTF France.

As a mediator and negotiator, Penikett has worked in aboriginal rights and devolution issues in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, and lectured on aboriginal treaty negotiations at both Simon Fraser and Queens University Public Policy schools and at the University of Washington's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. In September 2013, Penikett became Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Arctic Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.

In 2001, he became the president of Tony Penikett Negotiations. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation appointed him as a Trudeau mentor in 2016.