Celeste Haldane Board Member, YWCA Metro Vancouver

Celeste Haldane, KC is serving her third term as Chief Commission and was first appointed in April 2017. Celeste is Musqueam (Coast Salish) and Metlakatla (Tsimshian) from the Sparrow and Haldane families, and has European ancestry.

Celeste is a practising lawyer and was appointed King’s Counsel in 2019. Drawing from over 25 years’ of experience, her specializations are in Indigenous law, corporate governance, and she previously practiced criminal defense and civil litigation. She is an active member of both the Indigenous Bar Association and the Canadian Bar Association, and served on the CBA Indigenous Advisory Group.

She holds a Master of Laws in Constitutional Law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University and earned a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology) from the University of BC.

Celeste serves on governance boards and is serving as a member on the Advisory Council on Diversity to the Joint Task Force Pacific, Canadian Armed Forces.  Previously, she served on the Brain Canada Foundation, Legal Aid BC, Hamber Foundation, UBC Board of Governors, Musqueam Capital Corporation, and the Indigenous Bar Association, and is an alumna of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference. Celeste lives with her husband Conrad on Vancouver Island and is the proud mother of three, and grandmother of two.