InternationalIndigenousSpeakers Bureau

Business, Government, and NGOs

Executive Leadership Development

If you wish to be considered for a promotion from supervisor to manager, from junior manager to senior manager, or from senior manager to executive, Wayne’s experience and insights into everything from performance and goal setting to “360 feedback” and mentoring can help you achieve that next advancement. As Deputy Head of a federal government department, a senior executive, an organization president, and Chair of a Tribunal Court of Justice, Wayne knows the secret to breaking into leadership at the next level.

Leading Change Management

Adjusting to change in a workplace can be very hard; leading that change is even harder.  Wayne’s experience as a senior manager leading change at a “change-intensive” time can provide you with insights, tools and techniques to move forward and meet your designated change targets.  Understand change from the various perspectives and how to address change-resistant people and issues.

Organizational Performance Measurement and Evaluation

From government to NGOs to the private sector, all organizations need to set objectives, meet targets, and evaluate success. Wayne will walk you through this important annual process so that your organization can start tracking results that matter.

Briefing Decision Makers:  Telling It Like It Is

Most organizations need to pass complex specialized information up a long chain of command, from line workers/experts to field managers to regional directors to HQ Executives, for decisions. Messages can get lost in the shuffle. Learn from Wayne’s years of briefing experience (in both preparing and receiving briefings) how to make your oral and written briefing shine and ensure your message is received.

Values and Ethics in the Workplace

Every organization, large or small, has either clear and spelled out standards of values and ethics, or a set of guidelines that have evolved from the day-to-day conduct of business affairs by employees and management.  At the federal office of Values and Ethics Canada, Wayne helped develop the ethical standards that still govern conduct among federal public servants to this day. Understand the importance of an organizational set of standards and how a failure to meet minimal requirements will drive talent away and directly affect your business’s bottom line.  Wayne will help you start the conversation for your organization by giving you the tools to identify problems and improve the standards of values and ethics for your organization.

The Art and Craft of Influencing Public Policy

Wayne shares secrets learned from many years on the inside of government as legal counsel to government departments and as an executive charged with the development of public policy. What key factors do decision makers and policy wonks look for when determining policy?  Wayne can show you strategies for ensuring that your policy objectives are heard loud and clear, and seen in the best light. 

Policy Creation Process

Government versus NGOs versus the Private Sector – Wayne has over 20 years’ experience working on policy from the inside, in government (as legal counsel for various departments), as well as pushing for change through the world of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) and the private sector.  Wayne will lead you to better understand how government representatives approach problems, so that you can both talk their talk and appeal to their needs, while at the same time meeting your own objectives.  Wayne will help you develop your own techniques and tools for achieving your organization’s desired goals to influence decision makers, change policy or obtain approvals.

Law and Justice

Our Justice System

Take an auditory journey with Wayne and explore the Canadian legal system in all its many diverse facets and perspectives.  Wayne shares his hands-on experience as a courtroom lawyer and Courts Administrator to give you a privileged view of the judicial system from the perspectives of the client, the lawyer, the judge, the judicial administrator (who runs the show from behind the scenes), and the Office of the Minister of Justice.  This unique presentation gives you true insight into Canada’s judicial system, where “justice must be done and be seen to be done.”

Alternative Forms of Justice: Outside the Mainstream

Having worked early in his career in both a traditional court system, and in Tribal Courts using sentencing circles and alternative dispute resolution, Wayne spent much of his later career designing justice systems outside the mainstream.  Wayne’s understanding has been invaluable in the development of the Specific Claims Tribunal and the FSIN Appeal Tribunal.  Wayne’s message is a blending of the western legal concepts of procedural and administrative fairness with traditional teaching of Indigenous legal philosophy.

Dispute Resolution

Wayne has spent many years as a courtroom lawyer practicing dispute resolution on the courthouse steps, in the boardrooms, and in labour negotiations. Wayne holds a Certificate in Advanced ADR (University of Windsor), the black belt of Dispute Resolution. Understand how to evaluate your negotiation position and resolve issues before they turn into conflict. Learn from Wayne how to identify conflict-susceptible issues before they arise, and how to address those issues to achieve a win-win solution every time.

Indigenous Rights Are Everyone’s Business

Indigenous people are the fastest growing population in Canada, and in some provinces they will soon become the majority.  Are we ready to address the ever growing imbalance with this population’s rights?  This presentation explores the past and present to help us inspire a new and brighter future.

Aboriginal Law, Rights, Interests and Obligations: The Next Decade

You have heard these phrases in the news and perhaps these issues may impact your work or business, but what does it mean and where does it come from?  What do these things mean to me now and in the future?

Making Treaties (What is a Specific Aboriginal Claim?)

We all live on either Treaty land or unceded territory. Do we have any idea even what that means?  Can we say that those promises have been kept?  Learn from a Legal expert what the past and future holds for each of us as we explore treaties and Aboriginal claims.

What does "Consultation with Indigenous Peoples" Really Mean?

A great deal of news and politics has been stirred up with the notion of “consultation with Indigenous peoples.”  Understand where this comes from and what federal government, provincial government, Indigenous, and industry obligations exist.  Is there a connection between “consultation” and “free and informed consent”?

“The Indian Problem”!?

Why are Aboriginal people in the Constitution of Canada? Do we really understand the implications for our country of past constitutional changes?  These questions are at the core of what is sometimes referred to as “the Indian Problem.”  Look at this with a fresh perspective and see the possibilities instead of the problems.

Urban Aboriginal

Over half of all status Indians in Canada live off reserve.  A large number live in urban centres.  Wayne shares his experiences being a Band member living in the City (first as a law student, and then as a lawyer and executive in BC and Ontario).  What does it mean to be Indigenous in the City?  What conflicts exist between on-reserve and off-reserve peoples?  Wayne shares his personal experiences of “bridging both worlds” and how it has made him stronger. 

Personal Work Space

Work/Family Life Balance: Lessons from a Type-A Personality Survivor

Take a learning journey from Wayne, who led the high-pressure life of the career executive manager. Understand the sacrifices that must be made and how you can use the traditional teaching of Indigenous elders to finding inner balance so as to keep harmony in all aspects of your life.

Motivation

We all lose our motivational mojo occasionally, and having the tools and techniques to spot the problem and get ourselves back on track is what this talk is all about.  Wayne will share his insights as a senior leader of staff, a father, and an entrepreneur.  Insights from Wayne’s 25 years’ experience and reputation as a successful lawyer, senior executive and parent will help you meet your objectives “on time, on budget and to specification.” 

Time Management

As a busy senior executive, lawyer, and father, Wayne has mastered time management.  Wayne will take you on a journey of discovery toward the art and craft of stretching your time to achieve your goals.  He will share his secrets to successfully managing multi-million dollar projects and large numbers of demanding staff, to achieve any target “On time, on budget, and to specification!”

Employment Equity

Equality in the workplace is everybody’s business.  Learn how to deal with institutional bias, subtle racism and “old-boy privilege.”  Wayne shares his insights as past president of a public service council devoted to addressing employment equity for Aboriginal people. Wayne will speak of his experience in developing inroads to improve employment equity and how you can make a positive difference for your workplace.

Addressing Racism, Prejudice, Hate and Bias in our Work Environment

Take an auditory journey with Wayne to explore how racism, prejudice, hate and bias manifest themselves in the workplace.  Learn to spot the signs of “institutional creep” into your workplace and what you can do to counter this workplace toxin with proactive and positive action.

So You Want to Start a Business or an NGO

One of Wayne’s passions in his practice of law is helping individuals start a small business or non-profit entity.  Wayne will take you through the steps of how to get your business idea off the ground.  From initial idea to finished business/ service/product Wayne will bring you through the steps needed to make your dream a reality

Environment

Sustainable and Renewable Development

As climate change starts to affect our world, it is becoming essential for our survival to blend modern sciences and economics with traditional Indigenous knowledge and practices.  Working as a lawyer for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (now Ecojustice) and as a Department of Justice lawyer, Wayne has brought environmentalists, Indigenous groups, industry, and government together to work on the concept of a watershed stewardship table. Learn to build your own stakeholder bridges to develop dialogue and mutual understanding on your various projects.