Paul and Jacylin
Paul Alfred Lacerte and Jacylin Rose Marie Poirier were joined in marriage through two ceremonies on Lekwungen-speaking territory home of the Songhees and Esquilmalt Nations.
On June 20, 2025, they were united in a sacred ceremony at the Gorge Pavilion in Esquilmalt, encircled by 120 friends and relatives and formally welcomed to the territory by Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala (Bradley Dick). The ceremony was officiated by their sister Marianne Lacerte. Their legal marriage was written for herstory on Summer Solstice, June 21, also National Indigenous Peoples Day.
The groom, Paul Alfred Lacerte, is the son of Marilyn Lacerte (daughter of late Eva and Davey Lipton) and Mark Lacerte (son of the late Sophie Ketlo and Philip Lacerte of the Nadleh Whut’en Band, Carrier First Nation). He is Caribou Clan and a national Indigenous leader known for his work in the Friendship Centre movement, as co-founder of the Moose Hide Campaign, and as a champion for economic reconciliation.
The bride, Jacylin Rose Marie Poirier, preferring to be called Jace, actually, is the daughter of Helene Rose Poirier (daughter of Rose Jeanne Poirier and Leo Landry, a Red River Métis original scrip holder) and the late Gary Paul Cooper (son of Don and Jewel Cooper). Jace is a distinguished educator and proud alumna of the University of Victoria. As the creator of the COYA Philosophy — Consequences Of Your Actions — Jace is deeply committed to Indigenous self-determination through entrepreneurship, and to the revitalization of birth as ceremony and family stewardship as a reclamation of matriarchal knowledge and care.
Together, Paul and Jace share a lifelong commitment to uplifting Indigenous Peoples, particularly women and children. They live by the guiding motto: “To live with one hand in the soil, and one hand in the stars.”
Their joyful union represents love and legacy — a sacred act of intergenerational consequence.
They hope to make their children proud and to be good ancestors.