Blaise has worked with Indigenous Nations, grassroots community leaders, and nonprofits in North Bay
The Law Foundation of Ontario has awarded the 2026 Guthrie Award to Kerrie Blaise, who founded and is the principal of environmental law nonprofit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence.
The foundation described Blaise as “one of very few public-interest environmental lawyers serving Indigenous Nations, grassroots community leaders, and nonprofit organizations” in the North Bay region. Her nonprofit, LAND, focuses on environmental justice and Indigenous rights in northern Ontario.
She has acted for First Nations in landmark cases on Indigenous rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She has contributed to Indigenous-led efforts to protect the Ring of Fire in Treaty 9 territory; she sought leave to intervene on behalf of Indigenous youth and grassroots leaders from Attawapiskat First Nation in a constitutional challenge of Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025.
Blaise has appeared before the Federal Court, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Ontario Lands Tribunal, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and environmental assessment review panels on matters involving public interest environment, resource extraction, and energy. She has assisted in nationwide efforts to grasp and progress the use of the mechanism Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, which centers around Indigenous self-determination and land stewardship at the intersection of constitutional law, Aboriginal law, environmental, and conservation law.
In 2023, she launched LAND to focus on environmental and Indigenous rights advocacy. The nonprofit is the first of its kind concentrating on northern Ontario and offering pro bono community-based intersectional legal services on environmental and Indigenous law matters, strategic advocacy and litigation; it also provides mentorship opportunities and public legal education programs.
Blaise was previously northern services counsel at the Canadian Environmental Law Association. She holds a master of science from the University of Edinburgh and a bachelor of environmental studies from York University. She obtained her JD from Osgoode Hall Law School.
She chairs the Nature-Based Solutions Foundation and Ancient Forest Alliance and is an invited member of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership and Domestic Law and Policy Stream. She once co-chaired the Environmental Planning and Assessment Caucus of the Réseau-Canadian Environmental Network and was a federal appointee in an environment and international trade advisory group to the minister of environment and climate change.
“Our lives are increasingly affected by climate change and environmental injustice. Kerrie has carved a new path for environmental legal protections and Indigenous rights, giving voice to the people most affected by, yet historically excluded from, environmental policy and legal decision-making,” said Gerald Chan, chair of the Law Foundation of Ontario’s board, in a statement.
The Law Foundation of Ontario bestows the Guthrie Award on champions for access to justice.
