Biography for Gilles Marchildon

Gilles Marchildon is the Executive Director of Egale Canada and the Egale Canada Human Rights Trust. Prior to assuming his dual position in January 2003, Mr. Marchildon ran his own communications, marketing and event planning firm in Winnipeg called People and Ideas. He sat on Egale’s board of directors as one of the Prairie region representatives and was also the founder and director of the Reel Pride festival put on annually by the Winnipeg Gay and Lesbian Film Society. In Manitoba, he also served as Interim Executive Director at the Winnipeg Film Group and was employed at one point by the Manitoba Legislative Task Force on Canadian Unity. Working with a board of directors is not new for him. In addition to sitting on numerous boards, including the Ontario Federation of Students, Direction Jeunesse and Ottawa’s ALGO Centre, he managed the board of directors for TVOntario, the Ontario Arts Council and the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba. Mr. Marchildon has also pursued a career in arts management to the benefit of the Julie West Dance Foundation, Pro-Arts, Ottawa’s Festival Franco, Winnipeg’s Festival du Voyageur, the Music Arts Academy and numerous performing artists. This has complemented his work in the cultural tourism field. A long-time advocate of equality and human rights, both within and beyond the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, he has written for Toronto and Vancouver’s XTRA! Magazines and Toronto’s ICON Magazine. His editorial pieces on LGBT issues have been published in the Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press. Gilles was also Editor/Publisher of Winnipeg-based Swerve newsmagazine for four years and continues to pen a weekly column on LGBT issues for Uptown magazine. A graduate in Political Science from the University of Ottawa, the fluently bilingual Gilles Marchildon hails originally from Penetanguishene in southern Ontario but has lived in Ottawa, Paris, Toronto and Winnipeg.

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