Michèle Taïna Audette is Innu and Québécoise. She was born in Wabush, Labrador, and raised between Schefferville, Mani-Utenam, and Montréal. She studied visual arts at the University of Québec at Montréal (UQÀM), then arts education at Concordia University. Several years later, in August 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Montréal for her political and social engagement defending the rights of Indigenous women.

Among other things, she was president of Quebec Native Women (QNW) and Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) as well as commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Since the fall of 2019, she is senior advisor on Reconciliation and Indigenous Education at Laval University.

Since the fall of 2019, she has been the senior consultant of reconciliation and Indigenous education at Laval University. On July 29, 2021, Ms. Audette was appointed to the senate of Canada. 

As her values reflect our own, we are very happy to have selected Michèle Audette as our honorary YMCA Peace Medal winner for 2021.