Maurice Switzer, Bnesi, is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation, where his maternal grandfather Moses Muskrat Marsden served as Chief from 1904-09. His paternal grandfather, Harry Schwitzer, immigrated to Canada in 1910 to escape pogroms in Imperialist Russia. He has been a member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission; publisher and editor at five Canadian daily newspapers; communications director for the Assembly of First Nations and Union of Ontario Indians; and adjunct professor of Communications and Indigenous Studies at Laurentian University. He currently serves on the boards of the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre, Nipissing University, and the North Bay-Parry Sound District Health Unit. He has authored several books on treaty education. He is the author of "We are All Treaty People," "Nation to Nation: a resource on Treaties in Ontario", and "Grandpa, what is a treaty, anyway?" His son and grandson are captains in the Canadian Armed Forces, and he has one granddaughter and one great-granddaughter.