Judith Moses
UNIVERSITY KAHN-TINETA
St. Stephen’s University is pleased to recognize Judith Moses’s ongoing relationship with the University and now announces her role as our Kahn-tineta — she who makes the grasses wave, in addition to her role as chair of the SSU board of governors.
Kahn-tineta: A name, a vocation, a relationship, and a role
Kahn-tineta is the Mohawk name (her matrilineage) that describes Judith’s vocation over a lifetime as a change-maker, servant, and visionary leader.
Judith is a member of the Delaware Nation (her patrilineage) of the Six Nations of the Grand River.
She is married to Peter Lyman, and they have three adult sons. Today, Judith makes her home in rural Chamcook, New Brunswick.
For decades, Judith has traversed the lands of Turtle Island as well as internationally as a volunteer, professional consultant, a senior civil servant and politician. Judith brings to SSU her depth and breadth of strategic leadership experience from years in federal and provincial governments, the professional business world, and ser-vice with community and cultural organizations. Judith finished her federal public service career as the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and later as an advisor in the Ontario Cabinet Office.
Nationally, Judith’s community work for Canada’s First Nations has included serving as Chair of Home Instruction for Parents of Pre-school Youngsters (HIPPY), now the Mothers Matter Centre, pro-viding effective early childhood supports in immigrant and Indig-——
enous communities. In 2019, Judith was the first Indigenous person elected as an Officer of General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, serving as Deputy Prolocutor, where she engaged in the building of the Indigenous Anglican Church and the drafting of its constitution, The Covenant and Our Way of Life. Judith also brings her gifts to the boards of the Anishnawbe Health Foundation, Historica Canada and the National Ballet School. She also served as chair of The Vision Keepers Anglican Indigenous Forum and the Jubilee Commission.
At the level of local New Brunswick relationships, Judith has partnered with Chief Akagi (a true mentor) and the Peskotomuhkati people. Each fall, she helps SSU to participate in Orange Shirt Day events in St. Andrews. Her local involvement ensures that our Reconciliation Studies program is grounded in local cultural ways and ceremony.
She has long been recognized for her wisdom, expertise, and integrity. At SSU, Judith has been described as the Indigenous Conscience of the University. We give thanks for Judith’s long-term leadership on our Board of Governors, of which she is currently chair. We trust the Creator will continue to pour out grace and strength on her and her family. Learn more about Judith here.
More about Judith.
After graduating from the University of Guelph (where she was a Vice President of the Student Union), Judith took the risk of entering the federal public service at a time of significant upheaval in Canada on Indigenous rights, following the release of the controversial 1969 White Paper. The early 70s were a time of strained relationships as Indigenous organizations gained momentum and voice on treaty rights and land claims.
Many of Judith’s Indigenous friends went off to Wounded Knee with the American Indian Movement. She decided to remain in government believing that she could be a bridge between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community in helping make lasting systemic change. This was not always a popular stance and course of action, even within her own Indigenous community, but it aligned with her convictions that reconciliation often creates discomfort for anyone who has the courage to get involved.
Instead she took a year off and became a Youth Resource Worker helping Canadian Indigenous youth across Canada to develop projects to serve their communities and find their own voices. She re-entered public service after that believing that her gifts could be better served by bringing about justice and transformational change inside of government. For her, that meant mastering how government works and becoming a highly knowledgeable public servant.
She became the first woman to serve as the assistant to the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs. There she helped lay the groundwork for restoring the rights of Indigenous women under the Indian Act and counselled the Minister on relations with Indigenous peoples across Canada. Later in charge of federal-provincial relations in Indian and Northern Affairs, she participated in the first round of consultations with the provinces on the constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoples and organized the first joint federal-provincial Ministers conference involving Indigenous leaders across Canada.
Judith pressed ahead, attending Oxford Management Studies and working inside Whitehall helping to reform its recruitment system beyond the traditional Oxbridge advantage. She developed an early passion for “the machinery of government”—learning how government works and how to get real things done in a complex system. She specialized in the key relationship between an elected political system and the bureaucracy as a key part of the democratic process. She served under six Prime Ministers (Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin) drafting Prime Ministerial briefings under pressure, developing legislation, Throne Speech preparation, developing policies, and running government programs such as securing Cabinet support for a $1.5B farm aid package and a $20M annual investment package for labour market skills adjustment in Canada following the signing of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement – Judith was known as the godmother of federal sectoral initiatives.
She brought her traditional values and insight to a task force on government values and ethics and served on an employment equity advisory group to the President of the Treasury Board.
As former Principal of Asticou College delivering professional development programs to public servants, and serving formerly on Carleton University’s board of governors, she also brings insight to educational institutions. Judith has served at the United Nations, and has worked in Botswana and Iraq, experiences she also brings to SSU’s Peace and Justice programs. And as a former Vice President of the Institute on Governance, she brings knowledge of best practices to the governance of SSU.
When it comes to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, Judith certainly has ‘skin in the game.’ For example, her children were in their teens before she and Peter were finally married (in 2006). Until then, they couldn’t be married without forfeiting Judith’s Aboriginal status and land on her reserve and her children would not have been recognized as Indigenous. Issues like these motivate Judith’s spirit to work and to serve to make the grasses wave.
St. Stephen’s University is located on the homeland of the Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) people. We are grateful for their welcome and friendship, and we are always seeking ways in which we can develop our relationship in mutually respectful ways, including our conversations with Chief Hugh Akagi and others about our Reconciliation Studies program. It is a privilege that we are able to locate some of our program on the Peskotomuhkati Nation’s Camp Chiputneticook (15 minutes north of St. Stephen’s University).
We respect the intentions of the Treaties of Peace and Friendship, while acknowledging the many ways in which governments and others have failed to honour their part of those agreements. It is our desire to live up to the responsibility of being “treaty relatives.”