Jonathan Dewar

In January 2024, Jonathan Dewar returned to the role of Chief Executive Officer at FNIGC, having previously been with the organization from 2017 to 2022, during which time FNIGC secured permanent and ongoing funding for FNIGC’s national surveys, delivered the national First Nations Data Governance Strategy, and secured a $51 million investment for phase one implementation of the national Strategy. Jonathan also successfully steered FNIGC through the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He has spent most of his 20-plus year career directing research and knowledge translation initiatives for national Indigenous-led organizations. During that time, his work has focused on governance, strategic planning, health and well-being, data sovereignty, and truth, healing and reconciliation.

Jonathan previously served as the Director General and Vice President, Collections, Research, Exhibitions and Repatriation at the Canadian Museum of History; Director of the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre and Special Advisor to the President at Algoma University; and Director of Research at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, among other leadership roles.

Jonathan received a doctorate from the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University and holds an appointment as Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He also serves in many volunteer capacities, including as a member of the Board of Directors of the Queensway Carleton Hospital, where he is also Chair of the Governance and Nominations Committee, and a member of the Trent University Board of Governor’s Finance and Property Committee.

Born and raised in the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Nation (Ottawa), Jonathan is of Scottish- and French-Canadian heritage, and a member of the Huron-Wendat Nation.

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