Officer of the Order of Canada

• Awarded on: November 22, 2019
• Invested on: October 20, 2022

Jean-Charles Coutu, O.C., O.Q.
Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec

Jean-Charles Coutu has modernized Indigenous justice in Canada. Through the Quebec Itinerant Court, he sat in 21 Cree and Inuit villages in northern Quebec, where he advocated for the administration of adapted justice. The former mayor of the City of Rouyn, he also worked with Jeunesses musicales du Canada at the local and national levels, and co-founded both the Festival des guitares du monde in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the Agora des arts in Rouyn-Noranda.