George Leonard

GEORGE LEONARD

was a founding member of the Interior Indian Friendship Centre and an active member of the Native Brotherhood and North American Indian Brotherhood [Diana Skogland, Bonnie Leonard: Making Tracks for Ottawa] http://pureawesome.net/downloads/Gist04.pdf

Bonnie Leonard remembers her great-uncle as “quite a character. He was chief at one time, he blockaded the highway when they tried to put the highway through our reserve.” He also took the City of Kamloops to court when it tried to extend its boundaries to include reserve land. “He was a mover and a shaker” she said, smiling and shaking her head as she remembered his 1970s style negotiation tactics, which sometimes included the odd fist fight. He motivated her to enter
politics in 2000, when she was elected chief of the Kamloops Indian Band [Diana Skogland, Bonnie Leonard: Making Tracks for Ottawa] http://pureawesome.net/downloads/Gist04.pdf