Matt is from Mi’kmaq, Acadian and Scottish background, his family is connected to Mi'kma'ki, in eastern Canada and is continually reconstituting relations with Mi’kmaw family and communities. He is the son of Terry and Bev LeBlanc and has two sisters - Jeanine, and Jennifer.

During his younger years, Matt discovered a deep desire to explore the world and learn from the vast diversity that the cultures of earth display.  His education has been one focused on the experiential as well as the academic. Through the years that he has spent living amongst Indigenous Peoples around the globe, he has engaged with the traditional knowledge and wisdom from elders and teachers.
 
 It was during these travels and through the relationships built along the way, that Matt began to create a vision for engaging and gathering the emerging generations of Indigenous youth around the world. In pursuit of that vision, Matt, alongside Hannah Chapman (Maori/Irish from New Zealand) and Larissa Minniecon (Kabi Kabi , Gureng Gureng nation and Torres Strait from Australia),  created iEmergence in 2008.

iEmergence (iE) works in multiple countries, with dozens of different tribal groups and cultures.  Their desire is to see the restoration of traditional knowledge, values, systems, practices and governance, and to imagine with communities how those look in the twenty first century.  iE is focused on walking with Indigenous community to advocate and work towards justice, peace and good relations with the world around us.