In Memoriam: John (Ian) MacKenzie
Ian MacKenzie
Dear Members of the Trinity College Community:
We were saddened to hear recently of the death of Ian MacKenzie, a former Trinity faculty member who helped lead the College in early initiatives around indigenous reconciliation in the 1960s. His ministry as an Anglican priest and archdeacon spanned seven decades and was shaped entirely by Indigenous justice activism.
Mackenzie taught Religious Knowledge at Trinity from 1965-68, and in this role encouraged students to see faith as a call and vehicle for social change. He helped organize the Trinity College Conference on the Canadian Indian, a student-led initiative that brought dozens of First Nations leaders together at Trinity. He later wrote that the conference “began a process of supporting or making a base for native people to be put in a position where they were teaching rather than the recipient.” Trinity’s Rolph-Bell Archivist Sylvia Lassam notes: “As far as we know, the ‘Trinity College Conference on the Canadian Indian‘ was the first student-organized conference in Canada to deal with First Nations issues. In the spirit of learning, Trinity students raised awareness and raised money, gathered Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from around the country, and brought them together to listen and learn from each other.” An eventual outcome of this conference was the Anishnabe Institute in Toronto.
Within a few years of the conference, Mackenzie helped implement the 1969 Hendry Report, an effort of the Anglican Church to give more recognition and voice to Indigenous Anglicans. He was also involved with the Indian Ecumenical Movement that “sought to bring together” Indigenous Christians and traditional healers in an effort to reconcile their respective spiritualities. Certainly there were common threads between and among these goals.
On leaving Toronto he moved to British Columbia and helped found the Indian Ecumenical Movement which laid the groundwork for National Indigenous Peoples Day. Later he worked for the Dene in the Northwest Territories and helped those forming the Council of the Haida Nation. He was a voting member of the Nisga’a Tribal Council for 21 years during their treaty negotiations. More recently he was active in the Friends of Louis Riel.
Mackenzie believed educational change was key to promoting social justice. While in Toronto he was a founding director of Rochdale College and after moving to BC he became founding director of the Indigenous Studies Centre at Vancouver School of Theology and founding president of Wilp Wilxo’oskwhl Nisga’a, the Nisga’a Nation university college.
Jim Fulton, former Skeena riding MP and executive director of the Suzuki Foundation wrote this to Ian: “There are few individuals who have worked so hard with such focus to support the title and rights of Canada’s First Nations. You have poured your life, energy and spirit into the greater cause of justice on Earth.”
Mackenzie was born in Toronto on December 11, 1934, died peacefully in the arms of his family on April 8, 2025 in Powell River, BC. He is survived by his wife Paula, children John, Andrew, Douglas, T-Jay, Tori, Samantha and seven grandchildren. He was an adopted member of the Haida and Nisga’a Nations. The image below shows the Raven Mask created by Nisga’a carver Merlin Robinson that was presented to Ian in 2007 by Wilp Wilxo’oskwhl Nisga’a on the occasion of receiving an honorary doctorate from the Vancouver School of Theology.
Categories: In Memoriam