Heather Kuttai

She retired from competitive sport in 2005 and became a coaching and training program developer for wheelchair athletes in target shooting. Kuttai has given coaching support to wheelchair athletes doing other forms of sport. She managed the 2003 Canada Games teams of Saskatchewan in both air pistol and air rifle as the sole wheelchair-using coach.^[4] Kuttai was employed by the University of Saskatchewan to lead the formation of its Disability Service for Students unit and Student Central services advocating disabled students during their studies at the university. She published the book Maternity Rolls on her life as a disabled woman and mother.^[3] In 2010, Kuttai raised money for children charities by doing the annual Drop Zone event descending from a 22-storey building to the ground by harness.^[2]

In 2014, Kurrai was appointed as a commissioner on the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. She resigned in October 2023 after the Saskatchewan Party government under Premier Scott Moe invoked the notwithstanding clause for their "Parents' Bill of Rights".^[10] The bill mandates teachers to get parental permission before using the preferred name and preferred gender pronoun of students under the age of 16; Kurrai described the bill as "an attack on the rights of trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse children."^[10] After her resignation, interim commissioner Brian Wilcox stated that it took "true strength and determination to take such definitive action", and that Kuttai and her family were "true champions for human rights in Saskatchewan".^[11]

In 1987, she was named one of six Saskatchewan Junior Citizens of the Year.^[12] Kuttai was named the 1988 Sask Sport Athlete of the Year for her role in the Canadian Paralympic squad.^[4] Four years later, she was named to that September's Sask Sport Team of the Month for being one of five athletes from Saskatchewan to win medals at that year's Paralympic Games.^[13] Kuttai was named the recipient of the 2001 Excellence in Service to Students with Disabilities by the Canadian Association of Disabilities Providers of Post-Secondary Education and the 2002 U of S President's Service Award by the University of Saskatchewan.^[14] She was inducted into the Saskatchewan Hall of Fame in 2009,^[4] and was the 2021 winner of the USask Lifetime Achievement Award "for an outstanding lifetime of accomplishments and contributions to the social, cultural and economic well-being of society."^[3]