Justice Harry LaForme, who will head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining abuse at Indian residential schools, is no stranger to leading the way in the Canadian justice system.

A member of the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation in southern Ontario, LaForme, 61, was the first chief commissioner of the federal Indian Claims Commission, an independent advisory body established in 1991 to mediate land claims. Before that, he was commissioner of the Indian Commission of Ontario for two years.

LaForme served at the federal Commission until 1994, when he was appointed a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice (General Division), now the Superior Court of Justice, Ontario. Ten years later, he was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the highest court in the province, becoming the first aboriginal person appointed to any Canadian appellate court.

As a judge, LaForme broke ground in 2002 as one of three judges on an Ontario divisional court panel who ruled that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying violates equality rights guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. LaForme recommended the definition of marriage be changed immediately, but his two colleagues, Heather F. Smith and Robert A. Blair, overruled him and the panel gave the federal government two years to amend the law.

LaForme graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1977, and was called to the bar in 1979. He worked briefly as an associate at Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt, one of Canada’s largest corporate law firms, before leaving to start a private practice specializing in aboriginal law. He returned to Osgoode in 1992 to teach the Rights of Indigenous Peoples law course for two years.

LaForme received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1997 for his contributions to aboriginal law and justice. He spent his childhood on a reserve in Hagersville, Ont., and his teenage years in Buffalo, N.Y.

• Georges Erasmus
• Justice Harry Laforme
• Sgt. Thomas George Prince
• Stephen Kakfwi
• Woodrow W. Keeble