Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Leonard Stephen Marchand, PC, CM is a former Canadian politician. He was the first person of First Nations ethnicity to serve in the federal cabinet, and was the first Status Indian to serve as a Member of Parliament. Marchand was born in Vernon, British Columbia as a member of the Okanagan Indian Band. An agronomist by training, he left his profession in the mid-1960s to work with the North American Indian Brotherhood. His work in native affairs took him to Ottawa to lobby on aboriginal issues, and he was hired as a special assistant to two successive Cabinet ministers. He entered politics and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1968 election as a Liberal Party candidate for the British Columbia riding of Kamloops-Cariboo. He defeated high-profile Progressive Conservative candidate E. Davie Fulton.