Article content

Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould

The most powerful Aboriginal in Canada

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or A climate change holdout, Canada's most powerful Aboriginal woman and four more people to watch in 2016 Back to video

Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould was marked for great things early. Her grandmother gave her an indigenous name, “Puglaas,” which meant “a woman born to noble people” in Kwak’wala.

She was in her early teens when her father, Bill Wilson a First Nations leader, took to a dais to push for amendments that would enshrine Aboriginal rights in the Canadian Constitution. Wilson testified before then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau himself.

His two children “for some misguided reason” wanted to be lawyers, Wilson explained to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently.

Both of whom want to be the prime minister

“Both of whom want to be the prime minister,” he said. “Both of whom, Mr. Prime Minister, are women.”

Trudeau said he’d “stick around until they’re ready,” a response that garnered guffaws in the room.

That exchange, caught in a video clip, went viral soon after Wilson-Raybould, from the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation in B.C., was named justice minister in November.