Hockey Canada selects Marian Jacko for Board of Directors

By TRT Staff with notes from hockeycanada.ca

The members of the Hockey Canada Board of Directors were announced this past weekend.

Cited as coming from all walks of life and from all corners of this country, and elected by the Hockey Canada membership to help develop a comprehensive plan to grow the game on a local and national level, Marian Jacko was announced as one of the eight.

Jacko, Anishinaabe from the Wiikwemkoong First Nation, is the Assistant Deputy Attorney General for the Indigenous Justice Division of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Prior to this role, she was appointed by Order-in-council as The Children’s Lawyer for Ontario. Marian has made significant contributions to the legal profession including being the first Indigenous person appointed as The Children’s Lawyer for Ontario, where she spent nearly 20 years representing and advocating for the personal and property rights of children and youth.
Marian has spent her entire 24-year legal career tirelessly working on behalf of children and Indigenous peoples.

Marian raised her eldest child as a single parent while earning three University degrees, including a Master’s degree in Social Work and a law degree from the University of Toronto. While working full-time as a lawyer and raising three children, Jacko obtained her Master of Law degree from York University in 2005.

Jacko strongly believes in community service, serving on many non-profit organizations’ boards and advisory committees over the years. Currently, she is the President of the Little Native Hockey League, ”Little NHL,” and President of Anishnawbe Health of Toronto. She also joins a volunteer Board of Mentors with the Future of Hockey Lab whose work is committed to values-based social innovation and culture change while growing the game of ice hockey.

Jacko has over a decade of coaching experience having coached at the Little NHL over many years, at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships and the Ontario Summer Games. She is currently the head coach of the U18A team in North York. She is passionate about the sport of ice hockey and believes it has the potential to change the narrative for Indigenous children and youth to one of resilience.