Cheryllee Bourgeois


Cheryllee Bourgeois, R.M., is a Métis midwife and educator.

Early life

Bourgeois was raised in British Columbia but her traditional territory is in the Red River colony in southern Manitoba and the Missouri River Basin in North Dakota.

Education and practice

Bourgeios graduated from Ryerson University's Midwifery program in 2007. She practiced for over 11 years before returning to teach as a sessional instructor in the midwifery program at Ryerson University from 2008. In 2019 she joined the program as a faculty member. In 2002, she co-founded, along with Sara Wolfe and Ellen Blais, Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto. She is currently the President of the Toronto Birth Centre. She is an advocate for culturally safe care in pregnancy for Indigenous women.

Advocacy

Bourgeois has critiqued the Canadian federal government evacuation policy which requires pregnant Indigenous women from some communities to travel to cities in order to deliver their babies. She has also highlighted the harm done by practitioners who appropriate best practices from Indigenous midwifery without proper attribution.