10 Inspiring Canadians for November 2026

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November is a month of remembrance in Canada. Indigenous Veterans Day falls on November 8, Remembrance Day on November 11, Holocaust Education Week fills the first days of the month, and National Child Day comes on November 20. Movember also turns attention to men’s mental health. So this month’s ten are people who keep memory alive and look after others: veterans and a military mother, the volunteers who make sure no veteran’s grave goes bare, two Holocaust survivors who still teach students, and people working for children, men and farm families who need support. Most of them do steady work that rarely makes headlines. Here they are, from coast to coast.

1. Robert Nahanee

Robert Nahanee is a Squamish Nation Elder who served in the Canadian Forces from 1963 to 1977, with postings that included NATO forces in Germany and United Nations service. Since 2005 he has been the Squamish Nation’s Veterans Knowledge Keeper, a role he took on from his uncle, a Second World War veteran. He co-founded Vancouver’s Indigenous Veterans Day ceremony and has taken part since it began. His message is about recognition: Indigenous veterans who came home from war were denied rights and benefits that others received. Global News described him in 2025 as the only living veteran from the Squamish Nation, still working with veterans through healing and cultural programs. His teaching, he says, is about bringing people “one mind, one heart.”

Learn more: Squamish Nation

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2. Virginia Hicks

Virginia Hicks of Frankford, Ontario, served nearly 30 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, working in logistics and supply. The Royal Canadian Legion has named her the 2026 National Silver Cross Mother. On November 11 she will lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on behalf of all Canadian mothers who have lost a child in military service. Her daughter, Sapper Mariebeth Short, died in a training accident at Petawawa in 2002. Hicks speaks up for a simple idea: deaths in training deserve the same recognition as deaths overseas. After four soldiers died in a fire during training at CFB Wainwright in October 2026, she offered their families honest hope: “It will get easier. I can promise them that, but it’ll never go away.”

Learn more: National Silver Cross Mother at the Royal Canadian Legion

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3. Maureen Bianchini-Purvis

For years, Maureen Bianchini-Purvis laid a poppy on her mother’s grave at Beechmount Cemetery in Edmonton, keeping a promise to a Second World War veteran. When her daughters asked why so many other headstones had none, an idea took shape. In 2011 she started No Stone Left Alone, which brings students to military cemeteries to place a poppy on veterans’ headstones. In 2025, the foundation reports, 17,479 students from 220 communities honoured 114,825 veterans at 336 events. Ceremonies have also been held overseas, in countries including France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In 2021 she received the Meritorious Service Cross from the Governor General. “I want it to go on beyond me,” she has said.

Learn more: No Stone Left Alone Memorial Foundation

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4. Debbie Lowther

Debbie Lowther of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, co-founded Veterans Emergency Transition Services Canada, known as VETS Canada, in 2010. She saw that veteran homelessness was a serious problem getting little attention. The first volunteer teams, made up of serving members, RCMP officers, veterans and family members, went into Halifax shelters looking for homeless veterans. Today VETS Canada has volunteers across the country and a “boots to the ground” approach: go to the veteran, find them a safe place, and bring services to them. Veterans Affairs Canada says the group has helped more than 1,000 veterans “get off the street and back on their feet.” Lowther chairs the organization and oversees hundreds of volunteers.

Learn more: VETS Canada

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5. Nate Leipciger

Nate Leipciger was born in Chorzów, Poland, in 1928. As a boy he was taken through ghettos and camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. He came to Toronto in 1948, earned an engineering degree and built a new life. For decades he has also given that life to Holocaust education. He served 15 years on the International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and has long travelled with March of the Living as an educator. His memoir, The Weight of Freedom, was published in 2015 in the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2025. On November 3, 2026, the Toronto Holocaust Museum held a Holocaust Education Week event highlighting his work.

Find the book: The Weight of Freedom at the Azrieli Foundation

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6. Eva Kuper

Eva Kuper was born in Warsaw in 1940 and spent her early childhood in hiding. Relatives and a series of protectors, including Franciscan nuns, helped her survive the war, and she learned she was Jewish only on the journey to Canada. In Montreal she became an educator and taught early childhood education at Concordia University. In retirement she speaks to students and community groups, volunteers with the Montreal Holocaust Museum and has served on its board since 2013. She also travels with March of the Living as a survivor witness. Her memoir, A Beacon of Light, appears in the Azrieli Foundation anthology Before All Memory Is Lost. “If we don’t learn from our history, then we’re condemned to repeat it,” she told Global News in 2026.

Learn more: Montreal Holocaust Museum

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7. Cindy Blackstock

Dr. Cindy Blackstock, a member of the Gitxsan Nation, is executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and a professor at McGill University. She is recognized internationally as an advocate for Indigenous children’s rights, with a career built on equity, reconciliation and social justice. In 2023 she received the World Children’s Prize, which is voted on by millions of children around the world. In 2025 Children First Canada named her one of 10 Champions for Children. In October 2026 NOSM University reappointed her as chancellor, a role she has held since 2022 as the university’s first. “Meaningful change happens when we work together in the service of others,” she said. National Child Day is November 20.

Learn more: First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

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8. John Ogrodniczuk

Dr. John Ogrodniczuk is a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and leads its psychotherapy program. In 2015 he launched HeadsUpGuys, a free, anonymous online resource for men dealing with depression. It is a program of UBC and a registered charity, with a mission “to support men to improve their mental health, reduce their risk of suicide, and inspire them to live healthier lives.” The site now counts more than 6.5 million visits from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and other English-speaking communities. Tools like its self-check give men a private first step. With Movember under way and International Men’s Day on November 19, his work is a good place to start a conversation about men’s mental health.

Learn more: HeadsUpGuys

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9. Lesley Kelly

Lesley Kelly farms with her family near Watrous, Saskatchewan. After seeing how the pressure of taking over a farm business affected her own family, she decided to speak up. She is one of four co-founders of the Do More Agriculture Foundation, launched at FarmTech in Edmonton in 2018 to break the stigma around stress, depression and mental health in farming. “Our culture is built on strength, resilience and perseverance, but that can also be a weakness,” she told CBC. She also writes the blog High Heels and Canola Fields and speaks to farm groups. In 2025 she was a national finalist for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards in the Social Change category. Her goal is a farm culture where mental health is “openly talked about, supported, and prioritized.”

Learn more: Do More Agriculture Foundation

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10. Jeannine Tremblay-Dubois

Jeannine Tremblay-Dubois of Jonquière, in Saguenay, Quebec, has supported members of the Royal Canadian Legion since 2001. She manages the Legion’s kitchens and serves as director of its Poppy Campaign, the drive that puts poppies on coats across the country every November. Her giving reaches further: she has volunteered with Héma-Québec, supporting blood donors, and raised funds for the Fondation Santé Jonquière. The Governor General recognized her service with the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers. When you pin on a poppy this month, remember that volunteers like her make the campaign happen, one table and one tray of sandwiches at a time.

Learn more: The Poppy Campaign at the Royal Canadian Legion

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