SPEAKERS 

Samer Al-Jbawi

Settlement Counsellor Syrian Refugee / Somali Centre for Family Services

Samer Al-Jbawi is a refugee from Syria; he holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature, Diploma of Education from Damascus University and Master’s Degree in Education he started in when he was a refugee in Jordan.

Six months after arriving in Ottawa, he was hired full time by the Somali Centre for Family Services as a settlement counsellor, working mainly with other Syrians and newcomers. While working, he has recently completed three courses:

1. Creating Inclusive Spaces for Immigrants and Refugees with In/Visible Disabilities.
2. Understanding and Responding to Sexual Violence in Immigrant and Refugee Communities
3. Employment Services – Training for Settlement Workers.

Kamal Al-Solaylee

Associate Professor of Journalism Ryerson University

Toronto-based Kamal Al-Solaylee is the author of two national bestsellers. Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes won the Toronto Book Award and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and Canada Reads. Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone) won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and was a finalist for the Governor General Literary Awards. He’s a former editor and theatre critic at the Globe and Mail and has written for The Walrus, Toronto Life, Literary Review of Canada, the Toronto Star and the National Post, among others. He holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Nottingham.

Siku Allooloo

Toolkit Researcher Indigenous Climate Action

Siku Allooloo is an Inuit/Haitian Taino writer and community builder from Denendeh (Northwest Territories). She is a Toolkit Researcher with Indigenous Climate Action (an Indigenous-led climate change initiative), with a diverse background in Indigenous land-based education, youth work, and community-based research. She also holds a BA in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies from the University of Victoria and belongs to a strong lineage of writers, activists and leaders who have raised her to be close to the land. Her creative nonfiction, poetry and other writing center on decolonial politics, environmental protection and ending gender violence, and has been featured in The Malahat Review, UrbanScreen Presents, The New Quarterly, Briarpatch, The Guardian, and NationsRising, among others.

Jaloul Ayed

Former Minister of Finance & Candidate for the Presidency of the African Development Bank MED Confederation, Euromed Capital Forum

Jaloul AYED served as Minister of Finance in the second and third post-revolution governments in Tunisia. He was previously Board Member and President of the Management Committee of the BMCE Group in Morocco. He held several other senior positions in FinanceCom, the holding company of the group. He started his early professional career with Citibank where he spent 18 years holding several country management positions in the MENA region, and in the capital markets in London.  He presently serves as President of MED Confederation and Vice President of Euromed Capital Forum. He also is an active member in several associations of the Tunisian civil society, and a frequent speaker in professional and academic circles. He was the Tunisian candidate for the presidency of the African Development Bank in 2015. Mr Ayed is an author and a classical music composer. He holds an MA from the University of Maryland and was the recipient of several academic, professional and political distinctions.

Erin Aylward

Doctoral Candidate University of Toronto

Erin Aylward is a PhD candidate from the University of Toronto and a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar. Her research focuses on sexuality, gender and human rights within the UN, and draws largely from her past work as an international development practitioner with several non-governmental organizations in Canada and abroad. Erin has worked as the Research Lead for the Dignity Initiative, a Canadian working group focused on foreign policy and refugee policy related to LGBTI rights, and as the Gender Advisor to the social enterprise Voto Mobile, with whom she has helped develop, fund and implement a half-million dollar project on school-based sexual violence in Ghana.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Erin created, funded and filled the position of Gender Advisor to Engineers Without Borders Canada, working primarily with the organizations’ ventures in Ghana. She also worked as a Public Outreach Officer with the women’ rights organization, Oxfam Canada, during which time she coordinated Oxfam International’s presence at WorldPride in Toronto. Erin holds an M.A. in International Development Studies from the University of Ottawa and a double major in Political Science (Honours) and Spanish from Memorial University.

Wyle Baoween

Chief Executive Officer HRx Technology

As CEO of HRx Technology, Wyle is focused on building diverse and inclusive workplaces. In 2016, Wyle launched HRx, which provides services and technology solutions to address bias in our people, processes and systems.

Prior to HRx, Wyle worked for over 10 years in consulting and project management, specializing in process improvement, technology and strategies for change management. He worked in the marine, transportation and construction industries with local and international clients.

Wyle holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). In 2014, Wyle was appointed to the role of Ambassador for the University of Victoria’s Business School and in 2015 he was recognized as one of the University’s 25 Alumni to Watch. In 2017, Wyle is also a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade Advisory Committee for Women’s Leadership.

Wyle speaks regularly on the issues of diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias and technology.

Lori Beaman

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

Lori G. Beaman, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change and Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is Principal Investigator of the Religion and Diversity Project, a 37 member international research team whose focus is religion and diversity (religionanddiversity.ca). Publications include: Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2017) ; “Living Together v. Living Well Together: A Normative Examination of the SAS Case,” Social Inclusion, 4(2) 2016: 3-13; “Reframing Understandings of Religion: Lessons from India,” in S. Sikka, B. Puri, and L.G. Beaman (eds.) Living with Religious Diversity, 37-48 (Routledge India, 2015); “The Will to Religion: Obligatory Religious Citizenship,” Critical Research on Religion, 1(2) 2013: 141-157; “Battles over Symbols: The ‘Religion’ of the Minority Versus the ‘Culture’ of the Majority,” Journal of Law and Religion, 28(1) 2012/3: 101-138; Defining Harm: Religious Freedom and the Limits of the Law (UBC Press, 2008). She is the 2017 recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Impact Award in the Insight Category.

Beaman is a member of the Fellow, Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2017-2020. She is also a member and past President (2015-2016) of the Association for the Sociology of Religion; Vice-President, Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 2017-2020; and elected Canadian Council Member, International Society for the Sociology of Religion – SISR/ISSR, 2015-2019.

Perry Bellegarde

National Chief Assembly of First Nations

National Chief Bellegarde is from the Little Black Bear First Nation, Treaty 4 Territory. He served as Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and Saskatchewan Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations. He has also served as the Tribal Chair of the Touchwood-File Hills-Qu’Appelle Tribal Council, Councillor for the Little Black Bear First Nation and Chief of Little Black Bear First Nation. Perry Bellegarde was named AFN National Chief on December 10, 2014.

He has spent his entire adult life putting into practice his strong beliefs in the laws and traditions instilled in him by the many Chiefs and Elders he has known over the years. Passionate about making measureable progress on the issues that matter most to First Nations people, National Chief Bellegarde is a strong advocate for the implementation of Inherent Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. Widely known as a consensus builder with a track record of accomplishment, he brings community people, leaders, Chiefs and Elders together to focus on working cooperatively to move issues forward.

Brent Bergeron

Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Goldcorp

Mr. Bergeron joined Goldcorp in November 2010 and was appointed Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability in January 2015. Prior to joining Goldcorp, he served as a senior executive with international experience in the fields of construction and infrastructure development, broadcast and media. Over the course of his career he has worked throughout Africa, North, South and Central America.

Mr. Bergeron leads the development and implementation of Goldcorp’s corporate affairs and sustainability programs, including environmental stewardship, community relations, social responsibility, government relations, communications, country risk analysis and reclamation activities. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Council of the Americas, the Mining Association of Canada, the Boreal Leadership Council and the BC Special Olympics and recently joined the BC United Way Campaign Cabinet. He also serves as a member of the Executive Steering Committee for the Responsible Gold Standard Initiative at the World Gold Council and is Chairman of the International Council of Metals and Mining’s Environmental and Social Committee.

Mr. Bergeron holds a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) and a Masters of Arts (Economics) from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Jean-Nicolas Beuze

UNHCR UNHCR Representative of Canada

Jean-Nicolas Beuze worked for more than 19 years with the United Nations in the areas of Human Rights (OHCHR), Peacekeeping (DPKO) and UNICEF at Headquarters and in the field (Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Afghanistan and the Middle-East and North Afrika region) before joining UNHCR in Lebanon as Deputy Representative for Protection, also in charge of the coordination for the refugees and resilience response plan with the Government of Lebanon, UN agencies, and international/national NGOs, and donors.

Prior to joining UNHCR, he was the UNICEF Child Protection Advisor for the MENA region (2010-13) working on emergency responses in Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and system-building, as well as being the UNICEF focal point for the League of Arab States and overseeing education and youth programs in the region. He was previously appointed as the Deputy Director of the Human Rights Unit of UN Peace-Keeping/DPKO mission in Afghanistan/UNAMA (2008-10) focusing on the rule of law, elections, poverty and protection of civilians.

He previously worked as a Research Director in a human rights think-tank (International Council on Human Rights Policy) on issues of peace agreements, transitional justice, national human rights institutions and the reform of the UN human rights systems. Jean-Nicolas Beuze holds a LL.M in international human rights law from Essex University, UK, and a Master in international relations form the Graduate Institute of International Relations, Geneva/Switzerland.

John Borrows

University of Victoria

Dr. John Borrows is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria. His publications include, Recovering Canada; The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (Donald Smiley Award for the best book in Canadian Political Science, 2002), Canada’s Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and Society Best Book Award 2011), Drawing Out Law: A Spirit’s Guide (2010), Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism (2015) all from the University of Toronto Press. John has a BA, MA, JD, LLM (Toronto), PhD (Osgoode Hall Law School), LLD (Hons., Dalhousie) FRSC. He is Anishinaabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.

David Boyd

Associate Professor of Law, Policy and Sustainability University of British Columbia

David R. Boyd is one of Canada’s leading experts in environmental law and policy. He is an Associate Professor of Law, Policy, and Sustainability  at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. Boyd has advised many governments–from Canada to Sweden—on environmental and constitutional issues. He was the co-chair of Vancouver’s Greenest City initiative along with Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Boyd’s current research focuses on the right to live in a healthy environment, the rights of Nature, environmental justice, and the need for a new generation of environmental laws. In addition to his nine books, Boyd also wrote Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada, and more than 100 articles on environmental issues in publications ranging from The Globe and Mail to the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

David is the former Executive Director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (now Ecojustice), Canada’s leading public interest environmental law organization. He lives on Pender Island in British Columbia with his wife Margot Venton and their daughter Meredith. He enjoys kayaking, running, cycling and is the reigning Barnacleman champion.

James Brander

Asia Pacific Professor in International Business and Public Policy Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

Eva Busza

Vice-President, Research and Programs Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Dr. Eva Busza is Vice-President (Research and Programs) at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Prior to joining the foundation, she was Director of Policy and Strategic Planning for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Previous appointments also include Team Leader for Asia Pacific in the United Nation’s Development Programme’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery and Senior Advisor at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

Her research expertise and policy experience covers a wide range of issues tied to trade, investment, innovation, sustainable development and international security. Her work and perspectives have been cited across key media outlets including the Globe and Mail, Embassy, iPolitics, the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Sun, the Province, the Vancouver Sun, Business in Vancouver, The Asian Pacific Post, the BBC, PBS, CBC, CTV, and BNN.

Eva holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia. She has been a research fellow at Columbia University, George Washington University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Brookings Institution, and the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University.

Eva can be contacted at eva.busza@asiapacific.ca.

Michael Byers

Professor & Canada Research Chair, Department of Political Science University of British Columbia

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He has been a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, a Professor of Law at Duke University, and a Visiting Professor at the universities of Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Nord (Norway) and Novosibirsk (Russia). His most recent book is International Law and the Arctic (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Dr. Byers is a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail newspaper. Between 2007-2013, he served as principal investigator and co-director of the Climate Justice Project, a SSHRC-funded Community-University Research Alliance between UBC and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Geoffrey Cameron

Doctoral Candidate University of Toronto

Geoffrey Cameron is a PhD candidate and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the role of religious groups in the evolution of refugee policy in the United States and Canada. He has worked for the Baha’i Community of Canada and as a senior policy advisor at Global Affairs Canada. He is the co-author of “Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future” (Princeton, 2012).

Right Honourable Kim Campbell

Canada's 19th Prime Minister Peter Lougheed Leadership College - University of Alberta

The Right Honourable Kim Campbell PC, CC, OBC, QC served as Canada’s nineteenth and first female Prime Minister in 1993. She previously held cabinet portfolios as Minister of State for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans’ Affairs. She was the first woman to hold the Justice and Defence portfolios, and the first woman to be Defence Minister of a NATO country. Ms. Campbell participated in major international meetings including the Commonwealth, NATO, the G-7 Summit, and the United Nations General Assembly.

After her tenure as Prime Minister, Campbell was a fellow at the Institute of Politics (Spring 1994) and the Joan Shorenstein Center for the Study of Press and Politics (1994-1995) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She served as the Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles (1996-2000), then returned to Harvard to teach at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School (2001- 2004).

Ms. Campbell is a founding member of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former heads of government and state who work to promote democratic values. She served as Secretary General (2004- 2006). She also has served as its Acting President in 2002, its Vice President in 2003-2004, and served on its Board of Directors from 2007-2011. She served as chair of the steering committee for the World Movement for Democracy from 2008-2015.

Kim Campbell is a member and chair emerita of the Council of Women World Leaders (1999-2003). The Council’s membership consists of women who hold or have held the office of President or Prime Minister. Ms. Campbell is a member of the International Women’s Forum, a global organization of women of significant and diverse achievement. She served as its president (2003-2005) and was inducted into the IWF Hall of Fame in 2008.

Today, Ms. Campbell devotes much of her time to serving as the Founding Principal of the new Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta that graduated its inaugural class in June, 2017. She is also a trustee of the International Center for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King’s College London. In 2016, she served as Chairperson the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments, a role that she will reprise in the fall of 2017.

She is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, (the West Coast affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations) and the Global Council of the Asia Society of New York. She is on the advisory board of Equal Voice and Apathy is Boring, as well as an honorary patron of Informed Opinions. She is also a senior advisor to the Crisis Group and an honorary board member of the Climate Action Reserve.

Ms. Campbell is a member of the board of directors for Athenex, a biopharmaceutical company that had its IPO June 14, 2017 and trades under the ticker symbol “ATNX”. Her corporate director experience also includes the high tech, bio-tech, and medical devices industries.

Throughout her political career in Canada, Kim Campbell was deeply engaged in international issues including law reform and criminal justice, international trade (her signature appears on the NAFTA side agreements) and security (both as Minister of Defence and Prime Minister; as Justice Minister she served on the War Cabinet during the First Gulf War.) Since leaving politics Ms. Campbell continues to be involved in global issues where she works with many world leaders and former heads of state and government, and her views are sought in many international fora.

Jamie Cassels

President & Vice-Chancellor University of Victoria

Professor Jamie Cassels is President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Victoria, a globally recognized research-intensive university, known for its innovative programs for more than 20,000 students, dynamic learning opportunities, vital impact and an extraordinary academic environment for discovery and innovation.

Prof. Cassels is a legal scholar of international stature, a nationally-recognized master teacher and scholar, and a talented university administrator noted for his outstanding leadership and vision. He was UVic’s Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1998 to 2001 and Vice-President Academic and Provost from 2001 to 2010, during which time he was instrumental in formulating UVic’s strategic direction.

He has received numerous awards for his scholarship and teaching, including a 3M National Teaching Fellowship, Canada’s highest award for university teaching. He also received a Canadian Association of Law Teachers Award for Academic Excellence for his exceptional contributions to research and law teaching. He is the author of numerous books and articles. Among Cassels’ publications are: The Uncertain Promise of Law: Lessons from Bhopal (1993) and of Remedies: The Law of Damages (2000; second edition with Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey, 2008); and Complex Litigation: The Law of Large-Scale Claims (2005 with Craig Jones).

His scholarly legal publications are widely cited in both the academic literature and in courts across the country. He is a member of the Bar of British Columbia and as a lawyer and legal scholar has provided legal advice and guidance on issues of public importance. Prof. Cassels was named Queen’s Counsel in British Columbia in 2004 for his scholarly and service contributions to the legal profession.

Matthew Coon Come

Former Grand Chief / Former Chairperson Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) / Chairperson of the Cree Regional Authority

Dr. Matthew Coon Come is former Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) and former Chairperson of the Cree Regional Authority. Dr. Coon Come has held the position of Grand Chief/Chairman for 20 years. The Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee is an Aboriginal Nation with a population of about 18,000 and traditional territory to the east of James Bay in Northern Québec, Canada.

Grand Chief Coon Come is a national and international indigenous leader and advocate for the aboriginal, treaty and other human rights of indigenous peoples in Canada and internationally. His election in July 2009 to the office of Grand Chief of the James Bay Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee and Chairperson of the Cree Regional Authority is his sixth re-election to those positions.

Grand Chief Coon Come was first elected as Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees and Chairman of the Cree Regional Authority in 1987, and served for five terms of office. He was former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the national organization of First Nations in Canada, from 2000 to 2003. He became known throughout Canada for his efforts to end the federal policy of extinguishment of aboriginal peoples’ human rights of self determination.

In recognition of his leadership-marshalling “local, national and international environmental, human rights and tribal communities to create a strong coalition” to stop a massive hydro-electric project on his people’s land-Matthew Coon Come was awarded the Goldman prize, the “Nobel Prize of Environmental Awards” (1994).

In 1998, Trent University granted Grand Chief Coon Come the degree of “Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa” in recognition of the significance of his work, and in 2000, the University of Toronto also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws. In 2005, Dr. Coon Come was also granted a ‘Doctor of Divinity” from River Bible Institute. He also received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1995.

Born in 1956 on his parent’s Mistissini Trapline, Grand Chief Coon Come was soon recognized by the elders as a natural leader. He was asked to be coordinator for all the inland Cree communities for the negotiations with Canada that enabled the James Bay Crees to escape the Indian Act and achieve the first ever aboriginal self-government legislation in Canada, the Cree-Naskapi (of Québec) Act.

At the start of his political career, Grand Chief Coon Come served two terms as Chief of the Mistissini First Nation. By the time he left to work with his father on his trapline, his community had a new arena, an adult education centre, a bank, new administrative offices, new health facilities, and major improvements to its housing and community infrastructure.

He went on to become Executive Director of the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee). He was directly involved in the Grand Council’s successful effort to gain consultative status at the United Nations, and supported the Grand Council’s use of its international status to being issues vital to all of the world’s indigenous peoples before the international community.

Grand Chief Coon Come has been a Director of Aircreebec; Creeco (Cree Regional Economic Enterprises Company); the Cree Construction Company; Servinor; the James Bay Cree Cultural Education Centre; the Centre for Indigenous Environment Resources; and the Cree School Board.

Grand Chief Coon Come was Chairman of Cree Housing Corporation responsible for implementing the housing and infrastructure program. He was Chairman of the James Bay Eeyou Corporation, managing over one hundred million dollars in assets. He was also Chairman of James Bay Native Development Corporation, which under his leadership assisted in starting up fifty-four businesses within the Cree Communities. In 1995 he became a founding director of the First Nations Bank of Canada and served as a director for six years.

He has served as Chairperson of the Cree Nation Trust, a social trust created for the benefit of the Cree Nation responsible to manage and invest the capital and income of the Trust and to distribute the funds in accordance with the provisions of the Trust Deed. The Cree Nation Trust is the recipient of payments from the New Relationship Agreement signed between the Government of Canada and the Cree Nation.

Grand Chief Coon Come is also a former Chairperson of Eeyou Communication Network, a project sponsored by Grand Council of the Crees for a non-profit commercialization of broadband, with a mandate to an electronic highway for the Crees to connect institutions, businesses and residents to the world of information and communications.

Grand Chief Coon Come studied political science, economics, native studies and courses in law at Trent and McGill Universities, and also undertook theological studies in the United States following his tenure as National Chief in 2003.

Grand Chief Coon Come has also had an active and successful business career, with participation in energy, mining, information technology and arts and crafts ventures.
He married Maryann Matoush in 1976, and together they have three daughters and two sons.

Stephen Cornish

Chief Executive Officer David Suzuki Foundation

Stephen Cornish is CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), a leading Canadian environmental non-profit organization. Before joining DSF, he spent five years as executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Canada, where he led a team that ushered in tremendous change and growth.

Stephen has also served with the Canadian Red Cross and CARE Canada, and sits on the boards of directors for several charitable organizations, including as honorary member with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

From his first overseas mission in Nepal dealing with renewable energy and waste management issues, to sustainable community forestry activities in Central America, to more recent work on environmental health impacts of extractives, Stephen has long been convinced of our collective duty to protect the natural world and ultimately guarantee our own place within it.

He holds a master’s degree in global risk and crisis management from the Sorbonne in Paris and a post-graduate diploma in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford.

Stephen has helped spur public debate in Canada on pressing social and humanitarian issues, both as an analyst and contributor to news outlets such as the Globe and Mail, National Post and Policy Options.

In 2016, he was named one of the top 30 charity CEOs on social media. You can follow him on Twitter
@Stephen_Cornish.

Juan José Daboub

Chairman and CEO The Daboub Partnership™

Dr. Juan José Daboub, Ph.D., is Chairman and CEO of the Daboub Partnership, Vice-Chairman of Dorado Group, and Founding CEO of the Global Adaptation Institute, a Foundation dedicated to adaptation to climate change.

He is Former Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change (2012-2014). He has taught at Princeton University and is a member of several Boards of Directors and/or Advisory Boards of industries and non-for-profit Organizations in USA, Europe the Middle East and Latin America.

As Managing Director of the World Bank, from 2006 to 2010, Dr. Daboub oversaw operations in 110 countries in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia and Latin America. He was also responsible for the oversight of the Human Development and Sustainable Development Networks, the Information Systems Group, the World Bank Institute, the Department on Institutional Integrity, and the Arab World Initiative.

Prior to the World Bank, Dr. Daboub lead the expansion of his family owned businesses throughout Central America and worked with non-for-profits organizations on public policies to promote liberty, stability and growth throughout Latin America.

From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Daboub served concurrently as El Salvador’s Minister of Finance and as Chief of Staff to the President. In these high profile dual roles, Dr. Daboub helped to navigate his native country through several regional economic challenges including securing and sustaining El Salvador’s investment grade rating, “dollarizing: the economy, and completing a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. In 2000 and 2001, the Index of Economic Freedom ranked El Salvador above Chile, South Korean, Spain and Germany, as published by the Wall Street Journal. During this period, he also oversaw the emergency reconstruction on El Salvador after two major earthquakes in 2001.

Dr. Daboub’s leadership began in the private sector, where he founded and led a snacks manufacturing company, a packaging materials industry, a distribution company, and a consulting firm for nearly a decade before joining the Board of CEL, El Salvador’s electric utility, and presiding over El Salvador’s electric distribution companies.

Subsequently, he was named President of ANTEL, the state-owned telecommunications company which he re-structured and privatized through a competitive and transparent process that also de-monopolized that strategic sector and increased the access to telecommunications to the people of El Salvador by over 1000%.

He held high Government position in El Salvador for 12 years (1992-2004), working for three different Administrations without belonging to any political party, then or now.

Dr. Daboub holds a Bachelor of Science, Masters of Science and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University. He is married and has four children.

Mary Rozsa De Coquet

Rozsa Foundation

Mary Rozsa de Coquet is the Chairman of the Rozsa Foundation, a philanthropic family foundation founded in 1990 which is known for innovative arts management programs, contribution to public arts policies and cutting-edge arts research.

Ms Rozsa de Coquet has been active in many non-profit organizations. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum, currently the national Director, Governance; in addition to serving as a Ruling Elder at Grace Presbyterian Church and the Moderator of the Presbytery of Calgary-MacLeod; and, has had a life-long involvement with Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. Previous involvements include: Secretary of the national Philanthropic Foundation Canada Board, Vice-Chair with the National Music Centre Board and inaugural Chair of Calgary Arts Development Authority.

Ms. Rozsa de Coquet received a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude from Trinity University in Texas, an Education Degree and an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Calgary. In 2008, she was named as one of the Top 100 Women (Arts and Communications category) by the Women’s Executive Network; in 2011 she was acknowledged the Outstanding Individual Philanthropist by the Calgary Association of Fundraising Professionals; in 2012, was a recipient of the Queens Diamond Jubilee Medal; and in 2015 was named to the Order of Canada.

Emilie De Rosenroll

Chief Executive Officer South Island Prosperity Project

Emilie has an extensive background in economic development at the local and provincial levels. Prior to joining the Prosperity Project Emilie held the positions of Executive Director for the Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities (NSARDA) and Acting Executive Director of the Hants Regional Development Agency. In 2015, she was Nova Scotia’s lead consultant behind implementing a new province-wide economic development framework, spearheading the creation of four new economic development agencies.

Mohan Denetto

Director General Economic and Business Opportunities, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada

Mohan is a Government of Canada executive, leading diverse teams to promote economic development in partnership with Indigenous peoples, the private sector, and other levels of government. He has led government programs related to mining, environmental assessment, environmental remediation (cleanup), international, intergovernmental, and Indigenous issues. He has negotiated international regulatory cooperation agreements with the United States and Mexico, delivered on government-wide regulatory policy frameworks, and developed solutions with Indigenous partners to tough regulatory and environmental challenges in Canada’s North

Pamela Divinsky

Executive Director The Mosaic Institute

David Dunne

Professor Gustavson School of Business

Dr. David Dunne joined the UVic Gustavson School of Business in 2014, bringing with him a fascination for human behaviour and creative problem solving. These twin passions have shaped his professional life.

His research explores how designers apply in-depth user research and creative thinking methods to “wicked problems,” critical, chronic problems in society and business with no clear start or end point, problems in the health care system for example.

David’s research can be read in business and design journals, including Harvard Business Review and Academy of Management Learning & Education. He has held appointments at design schools in the Netherlands, the US and Mexico.

From his early years in marketing with Unilever, London, David learned the value of questioning assumptions and deeply understanding customers. He took this knowledge into advertising, where he worked on global brands with Young & Rubicam, and to new product development at Lipton and Lever in Toronto, where he managed global brands such as Sunlight and Dove.

Following a mid-career PhD at the University of Toronto, he taught at Queen’s University, the Rotman School of Management in Toronto and Simon Fraser University. He has won many teaching awards, including the President’s Teaching Award, the highest award at the University of Toronto, and Canada’s most prestigious teaching award, the 3M National Teaching Fellowship. He co-founded the Rotman Teaching Effectiveness Centre.

David teaches design, strategy and marketing to students and executives worldwide. His recent executive teaching/consulting clients include AstraZeneca, Corus Entertainment, GlaxoSmithKline, Mt Sinai Hospital and Ontario Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN’s).

He co-founded a social innovation lab at Simon Fraser University. He travels frequently to Nepal, where he works with a medical school dedicated to improving rural health and promoting peace.

Joan Elangovan

Director of the Asia Pacific Centre Vancouver Economic Commission

Joan Elangovan is the founding Director of the Asia Pacific Centre at the Vancouver Economic Commission, dedicated to strengthening business and cultural ties with the Asia Pacific Region. She works closely with investors, entrepreneurs and governments locally and internationally to facilitate the convergence of innovation, capital and market opportunities.

Prior to joining the Commission, Joan was a senior executive with the Government of British Columbia, Canada. She served as Chief Strategy Officer, Assistant Deputy Minister, Executive Financial Officer, and Chief Information Officer among other management positions. An experienced strategist and negotiator, Joan has significant expertise in public policy, strategy and stakeholder relations in a range of sectors including international trade and investment, technology, health, natural resources (forestry), justice, and education.

Joan serves on the Board of Directors of Arts Umbrella (Canada’s premier arts education institution for kids), the Vancouver International Film Festival Society (VIFF), and the Canada China Business Council (Vancouver). She is a past member of the Shared Services Board of the Province of British Columbia and the Audit Committee of the Forest Innovation Investment Corporation.

A frequent speaker and moderator at international business events, Joan is also active in various local media. She is the executive producer and host of Amazing Vancouver, a six-episode documentary film showcasing Vancouver as an innovative, creative and sustainable city and North America’s Asia pacific gateway.

Educated in Canada and China, Joan holds a Master of Engineering degree from the University of Toronto. She is also a graduate of executive programs from Queen’s University (Smith School of Business) and University of British Columbia (Sauder School of Business).

Dr. Stacey Fitzsimmons

Associate Professor International Business at University of Victoria's Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.

Stacey Fitzsimmons (Ph.D. SFU Beedie School of Business, Canada) is an Associate Professor of International Business at University of Victoria’s Peter B. Gustavson School of Business. Her research objective is to support globally mobile employees at work, by improving the way international organizations manage them. She does this by examining how multicultural, immigrant and refugee employees contribute to their global teams and organizations, how international organizations manage and leverage their globally mobile employees, and how domestic (non-immigrant) employees react to their immigrant colleagues. Stacey’s research has been published in Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Human Resource Management Review, Organization Studies, and Organizational Dynamics. She received the AOM’s International Human Resources Scholarly Research award and WAIB’s (Women in the Academy of International Business) emerging scholar award. She currently serves on WAIB’s board, and was awarded competitive visiting Fellowship positions at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Studies (GIBS), South Africa, and the University of Sydney Business School. She is lead editor on two special issues in progress now; one on global mobility of people in the Journal of International Business Studies, and one on equality, diversity and inclusion in the Journal of World Business.

Lee Francoeur

Lawyer Eagle Law

Lee Francoeur is a lawyer of First Nations ancestry (Taku River Tlingit – Northwest British Columbia) who works primarily with First Nations in Western and Northern Canada towards the reconciliation of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. Through the years, Lee has had offices in Whitehorse, Vancouver and Calgary. With over 20 years of experience practicing law, Lee has provided general legal counsel to First Nation governments, businesses and organizations, as well as businesses that work with First Nations. Lee operates a private practice and works with numerous First Nations and organizations. Lee is currently working with various clients on the resolution of outstanding claims well in excess of $2 billion dollars. He has also worked with his clients in conjunction with the Assembly of First Nations and Canada on the development of the new Specific Claims Tribunal – particularly in relation to Specific Claims over $150 million. Lee has worked with various First Nations to effectively protect and enhance environmental monitoring and enforcement in mining and other resource development areas. He works closely with Environmental Engineers to ensure that First Nation lands and interests (including lands returned to the First Nation) are environmentally sound. Most recently, Lee is honoured to join the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law as an Adjunct Professor teaching Aboriginal Law as well as acting as an Advisor to this Faculty

Emily Giles

Senior Specialist World Wildlife Fund Canada

Emily is World Wildlife Fund-Canada’s Freshwater Manager. She has always been a nature and wildlife lover, and dreamed of having a career in conservation from a very young age. She joined WWF-Canada in 2006, and worked on a variety of projects before joining the Freshwater conservation team in 2009.
Emily holds a BSc in Zoology from the University of Guelph, and an MSc in Conservation Biology from DICE at the University of Kent. Her favourite adventure to date is her 3 month stint living in the jungles of Borneo, collecting data on bat distribution for her MSc research project

Aleden Habacon

Diversity & Inclusion Strategist and Senior Advisor Intercultural Understanding University of British Columbia

I’m a dad of two amazing young boys. Married into a Chinese Canadian family. Moved to Canada from Manila at the age of two. Lived in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Regina. Joined the Canadian Army Reserve at seventeen. Oldest of three boys. Was once the youngest senior manager at CBC. Led intercultural commitment at UBC and currently, Senior Advisor. Recently co-produced a reality real estate show. Publisher of an online magazine and mentor to young writers. Was mentored by businessperson/philanthropist Milton Wong and architect Bing Thom. Co-produced/authored Milton’s autobiography. Learned to change the world at SFU. Consultant, strategist, facilitator, and public speaker. Interculturalist and passionate about Canada.

#diversity #multiculturalism2.0 #pluralism #intercultural #interculturalism #SocialSustainability
#media #universities #higher-ed #internationalization

Ibrahim Haj-Ibrahim

Syrian Refugee Pharmacist and Entrepreneur

Ibrahim Haj-Ibrahim is a Syrian refugee, entrepreneur and pharmacist.  Between 2001 and 2013, he operated his own pharmacy. From 2009 to 2011, he worked as specialist manager for Memorial and Acibadem Hospitals. For three years, he worked as an international trade manager for YNM Ltd, a global medicine distributor. Between

Ibrahim, his wife, his mother and his three daughters came to Victoria as refugees in February 2016. They spent three years waiting in Turkey before their refugee’ application approved. His youngest daughter was born in Victoria in December, 2016.

In summer of 2017, Ibrahim and his wife Ranim Khochkar started a business making and selling several types of traditional Syrian ethnic foods. With the help of his sponsors and members of the community, he managed to sell his products to different retailers in the region.

He tried to get his pharmacy qualification recognized. He managed to get his qualification recognized by the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (PEBC). He has five years to write his Evaluation Examination before receiving the approval to practice in Canada.

Brittany Harker Martin

Assistant Professor, Leadership, Policy & Governance and Former Director Werklund Youth Leadership Centre, University of Calgary

Brittany’s work sits at the intersection of Arts, Leadership, and Learning. She is an Arts Education Specialist (B.Ed, Arts Ed: art, dance, drama, literature, music) with a PhD in Strategy and Global Management (beta gamma sigma). Her expertise spans arts integration, workshop/program design, professional development, the virtual workplace, collaboration, innovation, and cognition. Her talent is in translating learning outcomes into engaging, customized learning experiences. She has taught every age group (preschool to grad school), excels at public speaking, and has extensive experience in the classroom and teaching on-line. Brittany is an interdisciplinary scholar, currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Leadership at the Werklund School of Education with past positions at the Haskayne School of Business (UofC), and the Bissett School of Business (MRU).

Charles Harvey

Professor of Business History and Management Newcastle University

Charles is Professor of Business History and Management at Newcastle University Business School. His research focuses upon the historical processes that inform contemporary business practices, entrepreneurial philanthropy, and the exercise of power by elites. He became involved in collaborative research (with Gordon, Maclean and Shaw) on entrepreneurship, wealth and philanthropy as part of the Strathclyde University spoke of the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP). He is motivated by the belief that inequalities in incomes, wealth, power, opportunities and social conditions across the world have become ethically and practically indefensible. He believes that philanthropy offers a possible way forward, but that this must be founded on greater understanding of the enmeshed economic, social, political and ideological forces at play in generating, legitimizing and sustaining inequalities. Remedy, he argues, depends crucially on the availability of better, more challenging research that helps in setting agendas for ambitious philanthropic endeavours.

Lisa Helps

Executive Lead BC Builds’ Project Origination and Process Innovation Initiative

As a community leader, Lisa Helps leaves a legacy that goes beyond the confines of city hall. Prior to entering politics, Helps worked with community members to create a not-for-profit micro-lending organization assisting small businesses to get on their feet.

As a civic leader, she recognized that running a growing city meant looking toward the future. While serving as mayor of Victoria between 2014 and 2022, Helps championed sustainable and accessible transit options, expansion of the city’s cycling infrastructure, improvement of climate readiness, support for community development and a commitment to Reconciliation. Her council also laid the groundwork for the creation of an Arts and Innovation District in Victoria.

Working closely with other municipal leaders and community stakeholders, including UVic, her collaborative approach advanced work on the region’s pressing housing challenges including climate change, housing and inclusivity.

Helps was recently appointed as a Housing Solutions Advisor to Premier David Eby to help develop BC Builds, a program to increase affordable housing supply for middle-income earners in BC.

Honourable George Heyman

Minister Environment and Climate Change Strategy

George Heyman was elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Fairview in 2013, and re-elected in 2017. He is the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Stragety.

Born and raised in Vancouver, George has lived and worked in Vancouver and throughout northwest B.C.

George served as the Official Opposition spokesperson for the Environment, the Green Economy, and Technology.

George was the executive director of Sierra Club BC, one of the province’s oldest environmental advocacy and education organizations. He also served three terms as president of the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU). In both organizations, George was a respected negotiator and a strong fiscal manager, running consistent budget surpluses.

George has been a faculty member of Simon Fraser University’s Dialogue and Negotiation program, teaching courses in multi-party negotiations and collaborative decision-making. He has guest lectured at a number of universities in B.C. and abroad, and served on advisory committees for post-graduate and undergraduate degree programs at three B.C. universities.

George is a passionate advocate for issues facing his constituents, including education, health care, the arts, child care, workers’ rights, transit, affordable housing, environmental responsibility and climate action. He also advocates for a more sustainable, modern and diverse economy as a member of the Official Opposition.

Chief Ava Hill

Former Chief Six Nations of the Grand River, Commonwealth Sport Federation

Ava Hill, whose traditional name is Iohahatie, was born on the Six Nations Reserve and is a Mohawk, Wolf Clan.  Ava was the Elected Chief of the 56th and 57th Six Nations Elected Council. Prior to holding the Office of the Elected Chief, Ava was a Councillor for District Two for three terms, a total of nine years.   After serving for fifteen years as a member of the Six Nations Elected Council, Ava did not seek re-election in 2019.

During her tenure as Chief, Ava represented the Chiefs in Ontario on the Ontario Provincial Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion up until June 2018.

In the 80s and 90s, Ava spent time working with the Chiefs in Ontario as the Executive Director of the Chiefs in Ontario Office and also at the Assembly of First Nations as the Executive Assistant to the National Chief.  Subsequent to her work at the AFN, Ava was the Executive Assistant to the Co-Chair of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Ava is a former member of the Board of Governors at the University of Waterloo.  She is currently a member of the National Consortium for Indigenous Economic Development at the University of Victoria and a member of the Advisory Council for Victoria Forum 2020.  She is also the Co-Chair, along with the President of the International Commonwealth Games Federation, for a Working Group that is working on a Declaration on Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples Through Sports.

Ava is a Board Director for Commonwealth Sport Canada.  As well, she is a member of the Canadian Advisory Board for Right to Play.

Ava is currently one of the Co-Chairs for the Capital Campaign Committee which is raising funds for a New Museum and Art Gallery at the Woodland Cultural Centre.

She is also a member of the Amethyst Selection Committee for the Ontario Public Service and was invited to be a Witness Ambassador for the Four Host First Nations/Canadian Olympic Committee Bid to host the 2030 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler.

She was awarded with the YMCA Peacemaker Medal for 2020, which was presented by the YMCA of Hamilton, Burlington and Brantford, and also received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Brock University in October 2021.

Carol Anne Hilton

Chief Executive Officer Transformation International

Carol Anne Hilton, MBA is the CEO of Transformation International an award winning First Nation Social and Economic Development company. Carol Anne is a recognized First Nation’s business leader with an international Masters Degree in Business Management (MBA) from the University of Hertfordshire, England. Carol Anne is of Nuu chah nulth descent from the Hesquiaht Nation on Vancouver Island.

Carol Anne was recently appointed as a senior advisor on the Canadian Federal Economic Growth Council. The Council advises the Federal Finance Minister Morneau on Canadian economic growth. Carol Anne has led the establishment of a line of thought called #indigenomics- building and developing local Indigenous economies.

Doug Horswill

Former Senior Vice President, Sustainability and External Affairs Formerly Teck Resources

Doug Horswill retired as Senior Vice President, Sustainability and External Affairs, Teck Resources in April 2014. From August 2016 to March 2017 Doug was a member of the Expert Panel established by the Honourable Catherine McKenna to review environmental assessment in Canada.

Following 20 years in the Public Service, culminating in the positions of Deputy Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations and Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources for the Province of British Columbia, Doug joined Cominco Ltd., later Teck Resources Ltd, as Vice President, Environment and Public Affairs in September 1992. He spent the next 22 years developing and leading Teck’s sustainability, community relations, environment, health, safety and external relations areas including Teck’s international zinc and health program.

Doug is past Chairman of the Mining Association of Canada and the Mining Association of British Columbia. He was founding Chairman of the Board of Resource Works and is Chairman of the Board of the Sunny Hill Health Care Centre for Children. Doug is a member of the Board of Directors of The International Fertilizer Development Centre (Muscle Shoals Alabama), Providence Health Care and the Canadian International Resource Development Institute. He is past Board Member of CARE Canada and the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Research Centre. He is an Executive in Residence for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Doug was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee medal for service in international development charitable sector.

Sandra Hucalak

Managing Director, Corporate Social Responsibility and Community Investment Alberta Treasury Branch

Whether working in public affairs, corporate social responsibility (CSR) or community investment, Sandra’s career has been connected and energized by the notion that meaningful and enduring social investment happens only when many aspects come together: creativity, imagination, inspiration, and a great listener’s instinct for what’s important to an organization and its many audiences.

This idea has guided her work in both the public and private sector and currently, ATB Financial, where she created the first CSR framework for the largest Alberta-based financial institution.

She was asked by the World Health Organization to develop multi-culturally appropriate curricula for health professionals and was part of their global team where she taught courses in Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East.

She is a member of the Mayor’s Task Force to Eliminate Poverty in Edmonton, on the board for the Canadian Centre for CSR (CCCSR) and Institute for Sexual Health Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, and on the board of the Sorrentino’s Compassion House Foundation.

Roberta Jamieson

President & CEO Indspire

Roberta Jamieson is a Mohawk woman who has enjoyed a distinguished career of firsts. She was the first First Nation woman in Canada to earn a law degree; the first non-parliamentarian appointed an ex-officio member of a House of Commons Committee; the first woman Ombudsman of Ontario; and the first woman elected Chief of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, where she continues to reside with her family. An accomplished expert in alternative dispute resolution, Roberta also served as Commissioner of the Indian Commission of Ontario.

Under Roberta’s leadership, Indspire has flourished. Raising funds from government, corporate and private sectors, Indspire’s annual disbursements of bursaries and scholarships to support Indigenous students in post-secondary education and training have increased sevenfold. An innovative K-12 Indspire Institute was launched providing support to educators and communities working to improve educational outcomes with culturally grounded curriculum and techniques. Roberta is also the Executive Producer of the annual Indspire Achievement Awards.

She has earned numerous awards, including, most recently, YWCA’s President’s Award and Women’s Executive Network’s “Canada’s Most Powerful Women” Hall of Fame, as well as 25 honorary degrees. In 2015, Ms. Jamieson was recognized by the Public Policy Forum for the outstanding contributions she has made to the quality of public policy and good governance.

She is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Dara Kelly

Post-Doctoral Fellow Peter B Gustavson School of Business at The University of Victoria

Dara Kelly is from the Leq’á:mel First Nation, part of the Stó:lō Coast Salish, and is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Peter B Gustavson School of Business at The University of Victoria.

She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Commerce in the Department of Management and International Business at The University of Auckland Business School in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Dara’s doctoral research explored Coast Salish economy of affection with a focus on Coast Salish philosophy of freedom, unfreedom, wealth and reciprocity. Economic unfreedom emerged with introduction of the Potlatch Ban across Canada, and its residual impacts are prevalent today reflected in an aspect of the research findings that honour Xá:m! Crying, weeping—the affective expression of grieving that shapes how the Coast Salish wisdom keepers in this research talk about gatherings. Economic freedom from within Coast Salish worldview is inherently spiritual by virtue of the interrelated nature of exchange between Xá:ls, the Creator, Sólh Téméxw, the river environment, and Xwélmexw, the river people. A paper stemming from her thesis won the Best Paper in Sustainability Award at the Sustainability, Ethics and Entrepreneurship (SEE) Conference in Puerto Rico in February 2017.

Currently Kelly is working on the Coastal First Nations (CFN) Legacy Project. CFN is an alliance of First Nations communities on Haida Gwaii and the North and Central coasts of British Columbia. She will conduct oral history interviews to capture the core values of the CFN and develop case studies that will highlight key organizational challenges and successes from the perspective of those communities.

Dara also completed a Master of Commerce in which she explored ancestral leadership with Māori business leaders, and in addition to her studies, Dara was a Researcher with the Mira Szászy Research Centre for Māori and Pacific Economic Development at The University of Auckland Business School. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Research Interests: Indigenous economy of affection; economic freedom/unfreedom; Indigenous wealth; ancestral leadership; Indigenous leadership.

Dr. Paul Kershaw

Associate Professor School of Population and Public health, University of British Columbia

Dr. Paul Kershaw is a farmer morning and night. By day, he is an academic, public speaker, media contributor and volunteer.  At the University of BC, he founded the Generation Squeeze Research and Knowledge Mobilization lab to be a centre of scholarly activity about generational equity, the conditions into which Canadians are born, grow, play work and age, and the public policies that shape those conditions like housing, child care, parental leave, work-life balance, taxation, retirement, etc.

Dr. Kershaw was recognized as “Academic of the Year” in 2016 by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC in honour of the outstanding scholarship and knowledge mobilization that he leads from his Generation Squeeze lab.

Kershaw studies and mobilizes knowledge about these themes in the Faculty of Medicine’s School of Population & Public Health because research shows that health doesn’t begin with health care.  Health begins with the social, economic, environmental and policy factors that shape the conditions into which we are born, grow, play, work and age.  These are often called the social determinants of health.

Before joining the Faculty of Medicine, Paul earned tenure at UBC in 2010 in the College for Interdisciplinary Studies, publishing routinely in political science, sociology and health related journals, and earning two national prizes from the Canadian Political Science Association for his scholarship regarding gender and public policy.

Guided by scholarship about how to mobilize academic knowledge into action, Paul launched the Generation Squeeze lab in response to frustration that peer reviewed literature was having too limited influence on how Canadian governments budget for the social determinants of health, particularly for younger generations.  In response, Kershaw now devotes considerable time to the community engagement commitment in UBC’s Strategic Plan, Place and Promise, to “Be a leader in fostering public understanding of societal issues and in stimulating action for positive change.”  He therefore currently targets a lot of his publications and other scholarly activity for the broader public and decision makers so that existing academic evidence has greater potential to influence Canadian government budgets, along with political platforms from across the ideological spectrum which shape those budgets.

To support this aim, Kershaw founded Generation Squeeze, co-hosted at his Lab at the University of BC, the Vancity Community Foundation and the non-profit Association for Generational Equity (AGE).  Generation Squeeze is building a powerful organization to speak up for younger Canada in the market place and the world of politics, and is intended to become the largest community engagement initiative ever launched from a Canadian university.  With numerous partners, Kershaw has designed the campaign to be a rigorously evaluated pan-Canadian population health initiative that responds to the recommendation of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health to tackle the inequitable distribution of power.

There is presently an unintended power imbalance between older and younger generations in Canada as it relates to government budgeting.  For example, whereas the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) exists to advocate for the aging population, there had been no pan-Canadian organization to speak up for younger generations until Generation Squeeze started.  Younger generations are also a third less likely to cast a ballot during elections compared to older generations, even though political parties shape their platforms around who shows up.  As a result, there is a generational spending gap in Canadian budgets which largely accounts for why international comparisons position Canada near the bottom of OECD countries when it comes to investing in the social determinants of health for the generation raising young children.  Kershaw is researching and evaluating the degree to which supporting younger Canadians to mobilize equal generational power alongside their parents and grandparents can mitigate the political-cultural factors which currently result in Canada’s poor international ranking, and slow pace of implementing the existing research about the social determinants of health for younger generations.

Dr. Kershaw is recruiting graduate students who are keen to work and study as part of the Gen Squeeze Research and Knowledge Translation Lab.  Students interested in working with Dr. Kershaw should first review the Gen Squeeze website, and explore whether their interests overlap with policy areas identified at http://gensqueeze.ca/policies.  Alternately, students interested in the scholarship of Knowledge Mobilization are also invited to contact Dr. Kershaw’s lab to explore the possibilities for collaboration.

Christian Kittleson

Partner EY Advisory Services

Christian Kittleson leads the British Columbia Public Sector Practice and the Indigenous Practice nationally.  He came to EY from the Province of British Columbia’s Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, where he served as Assistant Deputy Minister. Here, Christian worked with BC First Nations to secure long-term treaties and to expand the number of non-treaty agreements to further economic and social development opportunities benefitting both the Province and First Nations. Specializing in new innovative approaches in collaborative design, Christian worked to accelerate progress toward true indigenous reconciliation.

Reconciliation with Indigenous communities and Nations is about finding common ground and common intent.  Christian brings a process of multi-interest collaborative design, to replace traditional negotiations, with the intent of building trust.

Prior to this role, Christian was Assistant Deputy Minister, Natural Resource Sector Business Transformation and worked to implement the province’s plan to fully integrate the decision-making process across the Natural Resources Sector. Prior to joining the public sector, Christian worked in the private sector as an executive and Chief Financial Officer. His varied public and private sector background in operations and experience managing infrastructure and transformational projects, as well as his deep government experience and vast network, bring a unique insight and approach to today’s challenges.

Paul Lacerte

Former Executive Director BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres

Paul Lacerte, in his former role as executive director of the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, has been advocating for the betterment of Aboriginal people for more than 20 years. Under his leadership, the association has grown to over 30 staff and the Aboriginal Friendship Centres in BC have grown to over 1,000 staff delivering programs and initiatives to thousands of urban Aboriginal people each year.

Mr. Lacerte is a practitioner of traditional Aboriginal culture and spirituality. He has a gift for inspiring and supporting Indigenous youth. Through his leadership in the development of the Gathering Our Voices Aboriginal Youth Conference over the last 12 years, over 1,000 Aboriginal youth from BC and across Canada have come together each year to network, learn new skills, share knowledge, explore career and educational possibilities and participate in sports and recreational activities.

Paul Lacerte is the personal creator of the Moose Hide Campaign which started in 2011. It is a grassroots movement of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal men who are standing up against violence toward Aboriginal women and children. As part of the annual campaign, men wear a small patch of moose hide to symbolize their commitment to honour, respect and protect the women and children in their lives.

Mr. Lacerte is a member of the Board of the Vancouver Foundation and sits as one of the Canadian representatives at the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples.

David Lau

Executive Director The Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS)

Brian Leacock

Assistant Teaching Professor and Associate Director of International Programs Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria

Brian Leacock joined the Gustavson School of Business in 2004. He holds a dual role with the faculty as both an assistant teaching professor and associate director of its International Office.

Brian teaches undergraduate and graduate courses to diverse student groups and brings a global/interdisciplinary orientation to the classroom. He places special attention on understanding and practically navigating our globalized world. In the classroom he strives to connect with students as individuals so as to nurture their development and be the inspiration for their growth. He recognizes that each student has his or her own unique personal aspirations, as well as learning style.

Brian’s role as associate director sees him leading a dedicated team that supports all aspects of the international orientation of the school, including leading one of the largest international programs in Canada (100+ international academic partnerships in 40 countries). Brian travels extensively and presents at national/international professional conferences on intercultural communication, language, and innovations in international education.

International understanding has long been Brian’s focus and he has dedicated his career to building global bridges via education.  This passion has taken him to many diverse locations, such as Guyana, Namibia, and Ghana to manage CIDA funded development projects.  Brian has lived overseas for 9 years (in Japan/China) and has travel the world.

Brian’s present emphasis is on furthering the vision of the Gustavson School of Business as a leading innovator in internationalization among Canadian business schools. In 2009, because of Brian’s innovative leadership within the university, he was awarded the coveted Gustavson Innovation in International Programs award.  In 2015 Brian was honoured with the Excellence in Teaching Award.

John Longbottom

National Executive, Smarter Cities IBM Canada Ltd.

John Longbottom, P. Eng. CMA

John Longbottom leads IBM Canada’s Smarter Cities initiative which is about innovation and transformation by creating new value through advanced analytics against the explosive growth of data in world. He is responsible for IBM’s overall efforts with Cities, Regions, and Government agencies to improve operations and service delivery. He also develops strategic relationships with partners to promote and implement Smarter City solutions and capabilities. I He currently leads IBM’s Innovation strategy engagement in British Columbia. In 2013, John was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work with communities. Previous to the current role, John held senior positions in Sales, Marketing, and General Management in the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Insurance sectors. John also held the position of Manager of Strategy and Planning within IBM’s Global Industry Business Solutions in New York, where he worked on a 4 year assignment in IBM’s U.S. Corporate Headquarters, focused on marketing strategy and planning, and business strategy for IBM’s e-business Solutions. John has also been engaged in technology strategy and business solutions with Public Sector accounts for 20 years and worked as a technology and applications specialist in the Manufacturing, Distribution, and Engineering sectors for 5 years. In 2004, John created and implemented IBM Canada’s National Aboriginal strategy and continues to support that strategy in an advisory capacity.

John has held Executive positions at Ceridian Canada Ltd., first as Vice-President and General Manager of Western Canada responsible for the company’s business interests from Victoria to Thunder Bay, where he focused on business development, operational effectiveness, strategic sales and marketing. John then moved to become EVP, Sales and Marketing where he was responsible for market intelligence, market planning, marketing communications, marketing operations, new business development, sales, partner relations, and account management.  He was also responsible for the leadership and financial management of Life-Works Services, Ceridian’s EAP division.

Brian MacDonald

Assistant Deputy Minister Government of Yukon

Brent Mainprize

Teaching Professor University of Victoria

As an educator, Brent is an award winning Teaching Professor at the University of Victoria Peter B. Gustavson School of Business where he teaches Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Indigenous Entrepreneurship.

As an entrepreneur, Brent raised venture capital and commercialized technology and intellectual property in the areas of telecommunications and software. Brent was a judge for CBC’s Dragon’s Den regional screening of entrepreneurs. Brent was recognized as a “Top 40 Under 40” visionary on Vancouver Island.

Brent has personally written over 70 entrepreneurial business plans and strategic plans, evaluated over 700 plans. He has taught and coached over 5,000 students, entrepreneurs, executives and managers in in Canada, Italy, Australia, Taiwan, Denmark, and United States.

Brent has deeply engaged with many Indigenous Communities in British Columbia since 1999. He has worked extensively on economy prosperity initiatives, entrepreneurship training, and sustainable employment planning and strategies for the Nisga’a Lisims Government (post-Treaty). Brent had the honour to serve on the Board of Directors of the Nisga’a Commercial Group (2006-2012). Over the past 17 years, Brent was pleased to facilitate various sessions on Aboriginal economic development and Aboriginal entrepreneurship in over 45 Indigenous communities in British Columbia.

Brent was invited by Tribal Resource Investment Corporation (www.tricorp.ca) co-create and become the Program Director of the Aboriginal Canadian Entrepreneurs program (www.nwace.ca).  This unique program helps revive and enhance entrepreneurial capacity of Indigenous People by delivery the program in community. The NW-ACE program has helped give birth to many Indigenous owned businesses and has been recognized with a number of International and National awards.

He has held entrepreneurial management positions in the telecommunications high tech sector and continues to balance academic and new venture pursuits. Brent has secured venture capital as an entrepreneur and as a consultant helping high growth companies. As a management consultant, Brent has helped high growth companies secure large private equity placements, prepared for acquisition, and developed a variety of financial models and marketing solutions.

Brent holds an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and new venture start up. He also earned a PhD in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia where he received the Outstanding Dissertation Award for his focus on Entrepreneurial Business Planning and Private Equity Investment Evaluation.

Right Honourable Paul Martin

Martin Family Initiative & Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship

The Right Honourable Paul Martin was Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2002.

During his tenure as Minister of Finance, he erased Canada’s deficit, subsequently recording five consecutive budget surpluses while paying down the national debt and setting Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio on a steady downward track. He was an originator of the Finance Ministers’ G-20, and in September 1999 was named its inaugural chair.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Mr. Martin set in place a ten year, forty-one billion dollar plan to improve health care and reduce wait times; signed agreements with the provinces and territories to establish the first national early learning and child care program and created a new financial deal for Canada’s municipalities. Under his leadership the Canadian Government reached an historic deal with Aboriginal people of Canada to eliminate the existing funding gaps in health, education and housing known as the Kelowna Accord.

After leaving politics, Mr. Martin founded the Martin Family Initiative (MFI) focusing on elementary and secondary education for Aboriginal students and the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship (CAPE) Fund, an investment fund investing in Aboriginal business.

Mr. Martin has advised the African Development Bank and works closely with the Advisory Council of the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, sponsored by the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank. He was a founding co-chair of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, a 200 million dollar British-Norwegian-Canadian poverty alleviation and sustainable development fund for the Congo Basin Rainforest. Mr. Martin was also a commissioner for the Global Ocean Commission.

Before entering politics, he had a distinguished career as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The CSL Group Inc., the largest self-unloading shipping company in the world. Its acquisition by Mr. Martin in 1981 represented the most important leveraged buyout in Canada at that time.

Andrew Marton

Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives

Dr. Andrew Marton, director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, is a specialist in contemporary Chinese studies. His research revolves around the study of patterns and processes of spatial economic transformation in China’s extended metropolitan regions, with a particular focus on the lower Yangzi delta. His other research interests in China include studies of administrative restructuring and urban and regional development, curricular reforms and geographical education, and the emergence of new urban spaces for the visual arts and other creative industries in Shanghai, Beijing and Ningbo.

Prior to his appointment in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria in August 2012, Dr. Marton held positions at the National University of Singapore and the University of Nottingham. As founding director of Nottingham’s Institute for Contemporary Chinese Studies he led the strategic development of a highly successful Chinese studies teaching and research program which culminated in the creation of the new School of Contemporary Chinese Studies in 2007. From 2007 to 2012, Dr. Marton served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and was also Vice-Provost Teaching and Learning at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China.

Kevin McCort

President & CEO Vancouver Foundation

Kevin McCort was appointed President and CEO of Vancouver Foundation in September 2013, bringing with him a wealth of energy and over 30 years experience as a respected leader in the international development community to the role.

Serving the charitable and non-profit sector in Canada and abroad since 1983, he previously served for six years as President and CEO of CARE Canada in Ottawa, co-founded the Humanitarian Coalition in 2005, is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, is formerly Director of Imagine Canada and is currently serving on the Board of Directors at Community Foundations of Canada.

He graduated in 1989 with a B.Sc. (Specialist/Honours) from the University of Toronto. In 2005, he earned a Master of Business Administration from Queen’s University. In February 2013, he was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal.

Mike McKenzie

First Nations Youth

Robin Mclay

Senior Advisor to the President, Social Innovation and Strategic Partnerships Vancouver Island University

Robin McLay is the Senior Advisor to the President of Vancouver Island University responsible for advancing social innovation and strategic partnerships. In recent years Robin has been leading the Province of British Columbia’s work on social Innovation and prior to that he served as the Head of Research and Strategy at The MasterCard Foundation, Canada’s largest private foundation. Before joining the MasterCard Foundation, Robin was the Executive Director of McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development. Robin also worked for several years at Canada’s International Development Agency (CIDA) as its Director of Research and formerly as its Director of Democratic Institutions and Conflict. Before his work at CIDA, he served as the Executive Director of Harvard University’s Native American Program and still serves as a Founding Member of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Leadership Council.  Robin has earned strong international reputation for his contributions in the area of evidence-based policy-making by developing creative and innovative ways of linking research to policy. He has established networks of key international research organizations through his leadership in senior roles with governments, the private sector, academic institutions and with philanthropic organizations.  Robin sits on the Board of Director’s for the Walrus Foundation and for the SEEP Network, a Washington DC based organization that supports the work of more than 100 financial inclusion organizations that are active in more than 170 countries. Robin pursued his graduate studies at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and a B.A. from McGill University.

Jean McRae

Chief Executive Officer Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA)

Jean McRae, B.A., C.P.Ed, M.B.A., is Chief Executive Officer of the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA). Jean is sector Co-Chair for Pathways to Prosperity, President of the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC (AMSSA), represents AMSSA on the National Settlement Council (NSC), the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance (CISSA), and co-chairs the Western Region Working Group, and until recently served on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Council for Refugees. She served on the University of Victoria’s Community University Engagement Council, as co-chair of the National Working Group on the Attraction and Retention of Immigrants and Refugees to Smaller Communities, and currently is on the Advisory Council for Royal Roads University’s School of Communication and Culture. She has been an instructor at RRU. Jean has been working in the immigrant and refugee services sector since 1982, inclusive of three years working with refugees in Central America.

Norah McRae

Executive Director University of Victoria

Norah McRae, PhD, is Executive Director of the Co-operative Education Program and Career Services and the Director of the Office of Community-University Engagement at the University of Victoria, Canada. Her involvement in co-operative and work-integrated education spans more than twenty years, over which time she has led strategic program development and research on student engagement, community-engaged learning and intercultural competency development. In 2016 she was awarded the Albert S. Barber award from the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE) for outstanding contributions to the field of co-operative education in Canada and was co-recipient for the BCCIE Award for Outstanding Program in International Education. In 2013/14 she was awarded the CAFCE Service Award for meritorious service to the association and in 2012 the CAFCE Graham Branton award for research excellence. Her doctoral research examined conditions that enabled transformative learning during work-integrated education and led to the development of a preliminary theoretical model for learning during work-integrated education. Norah has been published in the International Handbook for Co-operative and Work-Integrated Education, the Asia-Pacific Journal for Co-operative Education, CEIA Journal and The World is my Classroom: International Learning and Canadian Higher Education. She is a faculty member for the WACE Planning Institute for Global and Experiential Education and the WACE Assessment Institute. Norah has served as President of the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education and is an Executive member of the World Association for Co-operative and Work-integrated Education Board of Directors.

David Miller

North American Director C40 Climate Leadership Group

David Miller has recently been appointed North American Director, C40 Climate Leadership Group, a global coalition of more than 90 cities that address the challenges of climate change. Serving as an ambassador, he will lead inclusive climate action and assist in empowering the city partners to achieved their mandates. He served as Chair of the C40 Cities from 2008 until 2010.

Since 2013, until assuming the C40 role, David Miller serves as the President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund – Canada, Canada’s foremost conservation organization. During his time at WWF-Canada Miller led the organization to refocus on its core mission of reversing the decline of wildlife, and achieved significant milestones such as the first MSC certified cod fishery in Canada, the protection of Lancaster Sound (the largest marine protected area in Canada’s history) and the research and publishing of the Living Planet Report Canada.  In addition, he stabilized the finances of the organization by obtaining significant new funding for its work.

David Miller was Mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010. Under his leadership, Toronto became widely admired internationally for its environmental leadership, economic strength and social integration.  His legacy includes Transit City, Tower Renewal, Streets to Homes, Strong Neighbourhoods strategy, the Clean and Beautiful City initiative, creating significant new revenues for the city and sparking the investment of billions of dollars into the city, including for the revitalization of Toronto’s waterfront.

Mr. Miller has held a variety of public and private positions and university affiliations in Canada and the U.S., and is currently a member of the Board of Governors for Centennial College. In his former capacity as Counsel, International Business & Sustainability at Aird & Berlis LLP, Mr. Miller advised companies and international organizations on issues surrounding the creation of sustainable urban economies – he is a leading advocate and forceful champion for the next generation of jobs through sustainability.

David Miller is a Harvard trained economist and professionally a lawyer. He and his wife, lawyer Jill Arthur, are the parents of two university age children.

 

Bessma Momani

Professor Political Science at the University of Waterloo

Dr. Bessma Momani is Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs,. She is also a Senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI), Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre, and has been Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center. She is a 2015 Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and a Fulbright Scholar.

She has authored and co-edited over eight books and over 65 scholarly, peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters that have examined the IMF, the World Bank, petrodollars, the Middle East, and Arab youth.  She is a current recipient of a research grant funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to study IMF and World Bank cooperation.  She was also the past recipient of two previous SSHRC grants on the reform of the IMF executive board and on Middle East urbanization. Dr. Momani is a regular contributor to national and international media on the Arab Spring and on global economic governance issues. She has written editorials for the New York Times, The Economist, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, and many other reputable international newspapers.

Honourable Jim Munson

Senator Senate of Canada

Senator Jim Munson is best known to Canadians as a trusted journalist and communications advisor. He reported on current affairs for more than thirty years, most notably as a bureau chief and foreign correspondent for CTV News. His reporting touched upon events around the globe – from Belfast to Beijing – including the First Gulf War, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the Tiananmen Square Massacre. At home, he covered the FLQ crisis in Quebec and later, in Ottawa, every Canadian government and federal election from 1974 onwards. Senator Munson was twice nominated for a Gemini Award in recognition of excellence in journalism.

In 2001, following his career as a reporter, Senator Munson joined the Prime Minister’s Office as a communications advisor and was made Director of Communications the following year. He was called to the Senate on December 10, 2003, to represent the province of Ontario and served as Whip of the Senate Liberal Caucus from 2008 to 2016.

Senator Munson is Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights and a vocal advocate for individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. His leadership in Parliament led to the adoption of An Act respecting World Autism Awareness Day and the landmark Senate report Pay Now or Pay Later: Autism Families in Crisis.

Daniel Muzyka

The Conference Board of Canada and the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business

Dr. Daniel F. Muzyka is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board of Canada and Professor of Management at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business. He is also Vice-President and Chair of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

He was previously the Dean and the RBC Financial Group Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Sauder School of Business at UBC. Dr. Muzyka has taught and held senior administrative positions at Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Babson College, Northeastern University, Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), and Williams College.

Dr. Muzyka worked in industry with General Electric and Braxton Associates. In addition, he has been an active board member on several corporate, regulatory, and venture boards. Dr. Muzyka currently serves or has served on various government councils, including the B.C. Competition Council, and the B.C. Premier’s Technology Council.

Dr. Muzyka holds a DBA from Harvard University, an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from Williams College. He has been awarded the National Order of Merit by the Government of France.

Giuliana Natale

Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion at Global Affairs Canada

Giuliana Natale is currently the Director of the Inclusion and Religious Freedom Division within the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion at Global Affairs Canada. The Division is responsible for the development and implementation of Canada’s international policies, programs and advocacy efforts related freedom of religion or belief as well as the promotion of pluralism, respect for diversity and inclusion. Ms. Natale also serves as a focal point for faith or belief communities and other members of civil society in Canada seeking to advance respect for human rights abroad. Prior to joining Global Affairs Canada, she served as Chief of Staff to the Foreign and Defence Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister, within the Privy Council Office. She also served for several years within the Department of Canadian Heritage, including as acting Director for International Relations where she was involved in the development of Canada’s international cultural policy which focused on the promotion of cultural industries and the advancement of cultural diversity as a critical component of inclusive policies related to social development and economic growth.

Ralph Nilson

President and Vice‐Chancellor Vancouver Island University

Dr. Ralph Nilson has been the President and Vice‐Chancellor of Vancouver Island University (VIU) since 2007. Under Dr. Nilson’s leadership, VIU is evolving as a values‐based institution that supports faculty and staff to create an exceptional learning environment for students. VIU has become recognized as a national leader in advancing reconciliation through partnership with First Nation communities, advocating for and investing in transformational change. As the leader of a regionally engaged university, Dr. Nilson works closely with Indigenous communities and local/regional governments, businesses and
non‐profit organizations to ensure relevant, responsive and innovative educational programs built on relationships of trust, mutual respect and inclusiveness. His continued engagement on issues of population health supports the developmental focus of his work on the social determinants of health and in particular his emphasis on education as key to addressing issues of inequity. Dr. Nilson also emphasizes the importance of the University in international outreach and in particular building a global connection to the local region. VIU has recently attained enrolment of more than two thousand international students from over ninety countries annually which ensures VIU is a portal for, and regional leader in, international contributions to awareness, dialogue and nation building.

Jacqueline Palladini

Principal Economist, Global Commerce Centre The Conference Board of Canada

Jacqueline Palladini leads the research program of the Conference Board of Canada’s Global Commerce Centre as its Principal Economist. She has conducted groundbreaking research on importance of services in Canada’s trade picture, and has written on clean trade, NAFTA, trade with Asia, and other important issues facing global commerce today. She has been featured in major media outlets across the country and regularly presents the latest global commerce research to policy and business leaders. She also has experience developing and maintaining economic forecasting models, conducting economic impact analyses, benchmarking business competitiveness, and conducting other custom analysis.
Prior to joining the Global Commerce Centre, Jacqueline spent several years forecasting provincial and territorial economies as well as the mining and motor vehicles and parts manufacturing industries. Ms. Palladini also spent five years working as a demographics expert on a technical assistance project in Ukraine. She built demographics models and trained municipal staff on how to forecast their regions’ populations. She also helped Ukrainian professors design a technical course on the topic. Prior to joining the Conference Board in 2007, Jacqueline worked at British Columbia’s Ministry of Health.
Jacqueline Palladini holds a MA in economics with a specialization in social statistics from McGill University and a BSc with distinction from the University of Victoria.

Rita Parikh

Director Vancity Board of Directors

A long-time supporter of co-operatives, Rita is committed to Vancity’s vision of transforming wealth and enhancing community health. She brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in educational, community development and regulatory organizations to the Board of Directors.

While her first savings account was at a credit union, it wasn’t until Rita joined the MEC board of directors in the mid-’90s that she truly understood the power of the co-operative model. During her seven years on the MEC board, including two as chair, Rita gained valuable experience in governance and the environmental movement.

Elected in 2016, Rita joined the Vancity Board to continue supporting the co-operative model in a meaningful way and help contribute to its success.

Rita’s career began journalism and international development, then moved into not-for-profit management. She is currently the director of the Nursing Community Assessment Service, a new program that will be responsible for evaluating the competencies and qualifications of internationally- educated nurses coming to work in B.C. Previously, Rita was the executive director of Canadian Parents for French, BC and Yukon Branch and a project manager with the Association of Canadian Occupational Therapy Regulatory Organizations.

In September 2015, Rita helped found the Pacific Refugee Welcome Group, a group of more than 70 community members in Victoria that work together to sponsor and support the resettlement of refugees from Syria and Eritrea. As a co-coordinator of the group, she is currently helping settle a Syrian family of eight. She is also a board member of the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society.

Rita holds a bachelor of journalism and a master of arts in international affairs, both from Carleton University.

Rita was born and raised in Nelson. She now lives in Victoria with her son, and still keeps close ties with her daughter who recently moved to Ontario to attend school. An avid runner and hiker, Rita is currently trying to brush up on her cycling skills so she can keep up with her son. A Vancity member for six years, she frequents the Victoria branches regularly.

Hilary Pearson

President & CEO Philanthropic Foundations Canada

Hilary Pearson is President of Philanthropic Foundations Canada, a national network of family, independent and corporate grant makers in Canada, representing many of the largest private charitable foundations in the country. Since her 2001 appointment as president, she has grown the organization to become a significant voice in Canadian organized philanthropy. She has a background in all three sectors, with positions in central agencies of the Government of Canada from 1981 to 1993, an executive role at the Royal Bank of Canada from 1993 to 1996 and a senior consultant at the Montreal strategy consulting firm Secor from 1993 to 2001. Ms. Pearson has a particular interest in nonprofit governance, and has served on several national non-profit boards of directors, including those of Imagine Canada, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada, CARE Canada and Indspire. She also chairs the Advisory Body of the Coady Institute at St Francis Xavier University.

Ms. Pearson holds a BA and MA from the University of Toronto, and honorary doctorates from Carleton University and the University of New Brunswick.

Jennifer Petrela

Director of Content and Strategic Engagement Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation

Jennifer Petrela is the Director of Content and Strategic Engagement at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, where she is responsible for the design and delivery of a demand-driven, user-centered program of thought leadership and knowledge-sharing. She came to the Foundation after eight years as a writer and editor for multilateral development banks and academic and government bodies. Prior to that, she worked for five years in the corporate affairs arm of an international labour union. Jennifer Petrela has worked and studied in Brazil, France, the United States, and the Philippines. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in the history of the developing world from McGill University and a Master’s of Science in environmental health from Université de Montréal.

Sophie Pierre

OC OBC Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation

Sophie Pierre served on the council of the St. Mary’s Indian Band, now known as ʔaq’am, of the Ktunaxa Nation for 30 years, 26 as elected chief. She was also the administrator of the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council and served as the tribal chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council for 25 years. During that time, she also served as chairperson of the First Nations Finance Authority, president of St. Eugene Mission Holdings Ltd., and co-chair of the International Advisory Committee to the Indigenous Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy of the University of Arizona. Sophie Pierre was appointed chief commissioner of the BC Treaty Commission from April 2009 to 2015, by agreement of the Governments of Canada and British Columbia and the First Nations Summit. She has also served on numerous boards and committees, local, regional, provincial, national and international.

Sophie Pierre was recognized with the Order of Canada in 2016. She also received the Order of British Columbia in 2002 and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the business category in 2003. During her tenure as chief commissioner, Sophie Pierre was awarded two honorary doctorates of law: in 2010 from the University of Canada West and in 2012 from the University of British Columbia.

Since her retirement in 2015, Ms. Pierre was recognized in BC Business Magazine as one of the top 50 most influential women in B C.

As the mother of three children and grandmother of four, Ms. Pierre, a fluent Ktunaxa speaker, has always been an active member of ʔaq’am (St. Mary’s Band) and a key volunteer in community projects ranging from school trips and sports and recreation events to fundraising efforts.

She now spends her time as an elder adviser to her community and to the Ktunaxa Nation. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation appointed her a Trudeau mentor in 2017.

Dan Pontefract

Author, Speaker, Thinker and Chief Envisioner TELUS

Dan Pontefract is Chief Envisioner at TELUS, a Canadian telecommunications company, where he heads the Transformation Office, a future-of-work consulting group that helps organizations enhance their corporate cultures and collaboration practices. Previously as Head of Learning & Collaboration at TELUS, Dan introduced a new leadership framework–called the TELUS Leadership Philosophy–that dramatically helped to increase the company’s employee engagement to record levels of nearly 90%.

He is the author of THE PURPOSE EFFECT: Building Meaning in Yourself, Your Role and Your Organization as well as FLAT ARMY: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. A renowned speaker, Dan has presented at multiple TED events and also writes for Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today and The Huffington Post.  Dan and his wife, Denise, have three young children (aka goats) and live in Victoria, Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria and is at work on his next book, OPEN TO THINK, set to release on April 10, 2018. More information at www.danpontefract.com.

Peter R.Elson

Adjunct Assistant Professor School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

Peter Elson is Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, and Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University. Peter received his MSc in Voluntary Sector Organization from LSE and his PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from University of Toronto.
Between 2010 and 2016 Peter worked with Peter Hall (SFU) and community partners across Canada to conduct the first comprehensive national profile of social enterprises in Canada.
Peter was co-lead with Jean-Marc Fontan (UQAM) of a SSHRC Research Partnership Development Grant (2014-2017) that focused on the societal impact of grantmaking foundations in Canada; and is currently co-lead with Jean-Marc of a stage two SSHRC Partnership Research application.
Peter’s specific research interests include the engagement of grant-making foundations in public policy and in Indigenous communities; and the analysis of an enabling policy environment for the charitable and voluntary sector, both in Canada and as part of an independent G20 working group.
He is author of High Ideals and Noble Intentions: Voluntary Sector-Government Relations in Canada (2011) and editor of Funding Policies and the Nonprofit Sector in Western Canada (2016), both published by the University of Toronto Press.

Tim Raybould

Professor of Practice McGill University

Tim Raybould is a Professor of Practice at McGill University (the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada). He was educated at the University of Cambridge, receiving his Ph.D. in 1993. For over twenty-five years Tim has provided professional advice to First Nations and Indigenous organizations in Canada and has been directly involved in a number of Indigenous–led sectoral and comprehensive governance initiatives. Tim was Westbank First Nation’s self-government negotiator and remains active in title and rights issues for Westbank including participating in reconciliation negotiations with the Crown as part of the Okanagan Nation. He has been a senior advisor to the BC Assembly of First Nations and co-authored the BCAFN governance toolkit: a guide to nation building. Tim is the senior policy advisor to the First Nations Finance Authority and was a part of the Tsawwassen First Nation’s treaty implementation team in respect of fiscal relations. In addition, he has worked with the First Nations Tax Commission, the First Nations Land Management Board and the former National Centre for First Nations Governance. He is also a faculty member for the Banff Centre’s Aboriginal Leadership and Management program.

Miles Richardson

Executive Director, National Consortium for Indigenous Economic Development

Miles G. Richardson O.C. is a citizen of the Haida Nation and Canada. He grew up among his people on Haida Gwaii, attended high school in Prince Rupert, BC, and in 1979 received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Victoria. From 1984 to 1996, he served as President of the Council of Haida Nation. Mr. Richardson was a member of the British Columbia Claims Task Force, which made recommendations to the Government of Canada, Government of British Columbia and First Nations in British Columbia on how the three parties could begin negotiations to build a new relationship and what negotiations should include. From 1991 to 1993, Mr. Richardson was a member of the First Nations Summit Task Group, an executive body representing First Nations in British Columbia. In October 1995, Mr. Richardson was appointed as a Commissioner to the BC Treaty Commission and was elected to a second term in April 1997. In November 1998, he was chosen as Chief Commissioner by agreement of Canada, BC and the First Nations Summit for a three-year term and was re-appointed in November 2001. In 2007, Mr. Richardson was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. Currently, he operates his own business advisory service and is the UVic Director of National Consortium for Indigenous Economic Development.

Sandra Richardson

CEO Victoria Foundation

Prior to joining the Victoria Foundation as CEO in 2001, Sandra enjoyed a successful career in fund development in both Canada and the USA. Most recently, she worked for five years as Director of Development and Planned Giving with the Victoria Hospice & Palliative Care Foundation and prior to that as Director of Development for the Cleveland Playhouse/Cleveland Opera. Among her many professional endeavours, Sandra has been a member of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP) for over 10 years and has been an integral part of the success of the CAGP Vancouver Island Roundtable, where she served as Chair for four years. She also served on the Board of Community Foundations of Canada for eight years and for six years was an active participant with the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network. Sandy has been recognized on many occasions for her achievements and for her distinguished service to the community, including being invited to enter the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem (2007) and a recipient of the Royal Roads University Community Leadership Award (2008), Vancouver Island Public Relations Professional of the Year Award (2009), University of Victoria Distinguished Alumni Award (2010), Rotary Community Leadership Award (2011), and Order of British Columbia (2016).

Peter Robinson

Former CEO Formerly David Suzuki Foundation

Dr. Peter Robinson is the former Chief Executive Officer of the David Suzuki Foundation.

He began his career working as a park ranger in wilderness areas throughout BC, where he was decorated for bravery by the Governor General of Canada. After his park career, he worked at BC Housing, eventually becoming its CEO. Prior to his current position, he served as the CEO of Mountain Equipment Co-op.

His humanitarian work includes working with the International Red Cross as well as leading a team that monitored detained asylum seekers in BC. He served as a Director on the Board of Imagine Canada, an organization that supports charities across the country.

Dr. Robinson holds a Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management, a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, as well as diplomas in Community Economic Development and Fish & Wildlife Management. He completed a Doctor of Social Sciences in 2014.

Morris Rosenberg

President & CEO Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation

Mr. Morris Rosenberg was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in April 2014. His term started in August 2014. He was previously appointed Trudeau mentor in 2005.

Morris Rosenberg was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2013. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Rosenberg served as Deputy Minister of Health Canada from December 2004 to June 2010.

Mr. Rosenberg began his public service career with the Department of Justice in 1979. From 1989 to 1993 he served as Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Affairs and Legislative Policy in the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. From 1993 to 1996, he served as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Economic and Regional Development Policy, at the Privy Council Office. He was appointed Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet (Operations) in 1996.
From 1998 to December 2004, he served as Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada.

Mr. Rosenberg holds a B.A. from McGill University, and LL.L. from the Université de Montréal and a LL.M. from Harvard University.

He was appointed Member of the Order of Canada in 2015, “for his sustained commitment to our country and for his effective and ethical leadership as a senior public servant”.

Dan Ruscheinski

Director ESRI Canada

Dan Ruscheinski, together with his wife and two sons, moved to Victoria after ten years in Calgary to join a local firm focused on solar energy solutions as Vice President of Sales. During his first four years in Victoria, Dan completed his Masters of Science in Climate Change and Sustainable Development to compliment his Bachelor of Commerce degree previously earned from the University of British Columbia. Prior to living in Calgary, Dan lived in Vancouver and discovered and fell in love with Victoria and Vancouver Island. He regularly visited the Island until moving to Victoria in 2008. A passionate advocate of the region, Dan believes strongly that the features of this area not only define its unique character, but provide immense potential for a very attractive future for all residents. Today, Dan is the Director of Sales Operations and Business Partners at Esri Canada, a global software company focused on mapping and spatial data analysis. Dan also is an active member of the South Island Prosperity Project, working to develop a strong, diversified local community.

Elissar Sarrauh

CEO Expert Consulting on Governance Inc.

Elissar Sarrouh is Founder and CEO of Expert Consulting on Governance Inc, and has been a Professor of Practice at the Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) at McGill University since September 2015. Prior to that, Elissar enjoyed a thriving and successful career as a United Nations Diplomat and senior international development professional, in Canada, the USA, Belgium, MENA and the Arab Gulf states. Elissar’s UN diplomatic career included representation and leadership in a number of countries including Egypt, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to joining the United Nations Development Programme in 2002, Elissar worked at the Parliamentary Center in Ottawa as Director for Middle East Programs, and a senior international development consultant with CIDA and a number of Canadian and International organizations. Elissar serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of International Development Professionals (CAIDP) and co-chairs CAIDP conference on Gender Equality, Inclusive Governance and the Law: An Alignment for a Better World, that will be held in Ottawa in January 2018. Elissar serves on the Executive Board of the Women Business Network in Ottawa as Vice-President for Programs. In the past, Elissar served on the Board of Directors of the Parliamentary Center among other Canadian and International Organizations.

Judith Sayers

Adjunct Professor University of Victoria

Judith Sayers is a member of the Hupacasath First Nation, President of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and a strategic adviser. She also serves on Clean Energy BC’s Board of Directors and is an adjunct professor for the Schools of Environmental Studies and Business at UVIC. As Chief of the Hupacasath First Nation for 14 years and Chief Negotiator for 15 years, Judith focused on restoring and rehabilitating Hupacasath territory. Judith has a business and law degree, an honourary Doctor of Laws from Queen’s University, and a long career practicing law in Alberta and B.C. She is the recipient of human rights and leadership awards, and was inducted into the Aboriginal Business Hall of Fame.

Oliver Schmidtke

University of Victoria

Dr. Oliver Schmidtke is acting associate vice president research at UVic with responsibility for supporting the implementation of the Strategic Research Plan and the refreshed International Plan as well as the oversight for UVic’s research centres. Dr. Schmidtke brings his international focus and record of excellence in international research to the role of AVPR, as well as his experience in leadership of the Centre for Global Studies.

He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence (1995) and joined the University of Victoria in 2000, first as a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholar. In 2003, he was appointed as a regular faculty and UVic European Studies Scholar in the Departments of Political Science and History. Dr. Schmidtke is also a professor in both departments and holds the European Union Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics.

Before joining the University of Victoria, he worked at Humboldt University in Berlin as an assistant professor (1995-98). Since then he has been a JF Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University (1998-99), a visiting scholar at Humboldt University Berlin (2002), a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute (2007), and a Marie Curie Fellow at Hamburg University (2011-12). From 2013 to 2016, he served as director of UVic’s Centre for Global Studies. Dr. Schmidtke’s research interests are in the fields of comparative European politics and contemporary history, European integration, migration and ethnic conflict, and the role of identities and collective memory in modern societies.

Sybil Seitzinger

Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions

Dr. Sybil Seitzinger is the Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), and Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions is a dynamic knowledge network that brings together leading researchers from British Columbia and around the world to study the impacts of climate change and to develop positive approaches to mitigation and adaptation. She joins PICS from her position as executive director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) based in Stockholm, Sweden. Prior to that, she was director of the Rutgers/NOAA Cooperative Marine Education and Research Program and visiting professor at Rutgers University in the US. She served as president of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography from 2006-2010. Her work at the IGBP involved facilitating and integrating the work of scientists and researchers across Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe on global environmental change. As a pioneering scientist, Dr. Seitzinger’s work at Rutgers centred on land-atmosphere-ocean biogeochemistry, with a focus on changes in the global nitrogen cycle and how humans are affecting it.

She holds a PhD in biological oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been awarded an honorary PhD from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She is highly cited, with more than 130 peer-reviewed publications to her credit.

Linda Sheehan

Planet Pledge, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation

Linda Sheehan is Executive Director of Planet Pledge, a project of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, where she advances global investment and philanthropic solutions to climate change. Prior to Planet Pledge, she was Executive Director of Earth Law Center, where she advocated for nature’s rights. Ms. Sheehan also ran the California Coastkeeper Alliance and Pacific Region office of Ocean Conservancy, where she successfully advanced federal and state statutes, policies and litigation to: fund and enforce clean water laws, publicize environmental data, curtail sewage and oil spills, establish marine protected areas, address invasive species, restore waterway flows, and create sustainable water supply strategies. For her efforts in “fight[ing] pollution of the Pacific and the streams and rivers that flow into it,” Ms. Sheehan was recognized as a California Coastal Hero by Sunset Magazine and the California Coastal Commission.

Ms. Sheehan holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.P.P. from U.C. Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley Law School. She is a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law and has been Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she developed and taught Earth Law. She is a contributing author to Law and Policy for a New Economy (Edward Elgar Publishing 2017), Wild Law in Practice (Routledge 2014), Rule of Law for Nature (Cambridge University Press 2013), and Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press 2011), with an additional book chapter expected from Cambridge University Press in early 2018.

Jocelyn Stacey

Assistant Professor Peter Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia

Jocelyn Stacey is an Assistant Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on Canadian environmental and administrative law. She has a doctorate in law from McGill University. Her dissertation, “The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency,” was nominated for the Governor General’s Gold Medal. She has a LLM from Yale Law School and an LLB from the University of Calgary. Professor Stacey has been the recipient of numerous academic awards including a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship for her doctoral work. Prior to graduate work, Jocelyn clerked for the Honorable Justice Marshall Rothstein at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Professor Stacey’s research focuses on the relationship between the rule of law and environmental issues. Her current work explores the potential implications of understanding environmental issues from the perspective of an ongoing emergency. A profile of her current work can be found on the Research Portal. She is a founding Board Member of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, a non-profit society dedicated to training law students and young lawyers in public interest environmental law litigation.

James Stauch

Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University

James Stauch is the Director of the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University, which connects learning, research and change leadership to build community and strengthen the common good. James has served as a foundation executive and consultant with nearly two decades of experience working in the field of philanthropy, including as senior executive for the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation in Toronto. He has also chaired or helped found a number of membership-based philanthropic foundation networks and collaboratives, including the Arctic Funders Collaborative, International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, and the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network.

Jillian Stirk

Mentor Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation

Jillian Stirk: An expert in foreign policy and multilateral negotiations, Jillian Stirk is a former Ambassador to Norway and assistant deputy minister in the federal public service. She has spent more than 30 years working on human rights, security, and conflict prevention in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. She has conducted negotiations through a variety of multilateral organisations including the United Nations, NATO, the OSCE, the Arctic Council, and the EU. Ms. Stirk is a 2015 mentor, a Dialogue Associate at the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue, and co-leading a project for the Trudeau Foundation on Diversity, Pluralism, and the Future of Citizenship.

Roy Suddaby

Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria

Dr. Roy Suddaby, an influential and top cited business scholar, brings his passion for organizational research and teaching to the Gustavson School of Business. Roy serves as the Francis G. Winspear Chair and works with PhD students in the area of organizational analysis. His current research seeks to understand how corporations are adapting to changing global norms and expectations. His research focuses on organizational change and where it intersects with business and society. Dr. Suddaby is the outgoing editor of the Academy of Management Review and has served as editor or guest editor for several journals. His research can be found in numerous academic journals including the Administrative Sciences Quarterly, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, and the Academy of Management Journal He has won best paper awards from the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada as well as the Greif Research Impact Award from the Academy of Management. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award by the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada. In addition, he is a strategic research advisor at the University of Newcastle Business School and an honorary professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Eric Swanson

Executive Director Generation Squeeze

Originally, Eric’s dream was to leverage his specialized training in geology and microbial biology and combine it with other qualifications towards a long-shot application to the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut program.
However, that dream lost its lustre as worrying realities here on earth began to sink in: climate change, biodiversity collapse and the unsustainable economies driving both.

Changing course, Eric began volunteering and working for a variety of non-profits on issues of wildlife conservation, forestry, and energy policy. In 2013, he joined Generation Squeeze, a research and advocacy organization for young Canadians tying together day-to-day issues such as crushing housing and child care costs, precarious work and mounting debts, and the longer-term challenges of environmental deterioration.

Now in his mid-thirties, Eric is dedicated to working with other younger Canadians to develop a more powerful voice in policy and politics.

Anne-Bernice Thomas

Student University of Victoria

Ann-Bernice Thomas is multi-disciplinary artist, currently completing a double major in Theatre and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria. In 2016 she was the Youth Poet Laureate of Victoria, where she performed at Rifflandia, Victoria’s Ferguson Rally, and this year, had a poem published in the Royal BC Museum’s Family & Belonging Anthology.

Among other things Ann-Bernice has won Best Narrative (Sunscreen Film Festival), Bravest Show (Victoria Fringe Festival), and VACCS Community Recognition Award.

She is currently working on Taking Up Space, an educational radio show on Intersectional Feminism.

Anna Maria Tremonti

Host CBC Radio

Anna Maria Tremonti has been the host of CBC Radio One’s The Current since it first burst onto the airwaves in November of 2002.

She brings a mix of hard-edged journalism and hard-won empathy to a 90-minute program that tackles everything from the politics of the day, to the changes that affect our society, to the stories of individuals whose personal journeys and traumas affect us all.

The Current marked her return to radio after 19 years with CBC Television, including two years as a host of the flagship investigative program the fifth estate. For nine years she was a foreign correspondent for The National, based in Berlin, London, Jerusalem and Washington. Her assignments abroad included ongoing coverage of the war in Bosnia, the fall of communism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as the politics of the Arab world, Europe and the United States.Prior to that, Anna Maria reported from Parliament Hill, and worked as a reporter in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta.She began her career in private radio, at CKEC in New Glasgow Nova Scotia.

Anna Maria has won two Gemini awards, and a life Achievement Award from Women in Film and Television Toronto. During her time at The Current, she and the program have won numerous awards at the New York Festivals, including: Gold for Best News Documentary of Special (2013), Gold for Best Talk Special: Interview (2009), Silver for Best Newsmagazine (2013), Bronze for Best Talk Show Host (2008, 2014 and 2015), Bronze for Best Coverage, Breaking News (2015), and Bronze for Best News Documentary or Special (2014). Her work at The Current also has been recognized with an Amnesty International Canada Media Award (2012), three Gracie Awards (2011, 2014 and 2015), and several Gabriel Awards and RTDNA Awards, including the Adrienne Clarkson Diversity Award (2013), the Peter Gzowski Information Program Award (2009, 2011 & 2014) and the Gord Sinclair Live Special Events Award (2014). With Anna Maria at the helm, The Current in 2012 also won the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Excellence in Journalism Award (Large Media Category), and was a finalist for that top honour in 2013.

Anna Maria is a graduate of the Communications Studies program at the University of Windsor. She has honorary doctorates from the University of Windsor and Carleton University in Ottawa.

Mark Tschirgi

Program Officer The Global Centre for Pluralism

Nadia Turki

President International Academy of Media and Diplomacy (IAMD)

Nadia Turki is a London-based Arab journalist, biographer and poet.

Currently Nadia is the Editor of Almajalla Magazine, and CEO of the International Academy of Media and Diplomacy, a visiting professor at Sterling Univesity.She give trainings in media and Diplomacy. From 2010 to 2015, Nadia was the Senior Editor in the Political Section of Alsharq Al Aswat (Middle East). She has interviewed many senior Arab and international politicians and business people.

She is the biographer of M. Cherif Bassiouni, a leading figure in human rights and international law. Nadia regularly hosts and participates in BBC Arabic programs including “7 Days”, “Open Agenda” and “Talk Time”.

Her poetry includes the book “The Vision” and, for many years, she wrote a daily column in the “Al-Arab” newspaper titled “Reflections of a Woman”.

In 2015, Nadia founded the International Academy of Media and Diplomacy (IAMD), and she serves as its President.

David Usher

Director General of Trade Negotiations Global Affairs Canada

Mr David Usher was the Canadian ambassador to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Djibouti, and Permanent Observer of Canada to the African Union. He worked in the field of development in Nigeria, Malawi, Haiti and the Philippines in the non-governmental sector. In 1991, he joined External Affairs and International Trade Canada. From 1994 to 1997, he served as second secretary in the Canadian embassy to Turkey. In 2001, he became

In 2001, he became counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. From 2004 to 2005, he was director of the Trade Controls Policy Division and, later, director of the Softwood Lumber Controls Division. From 2008 to 2009, he was senior departmental adviser in the Office of the Minister of International Trade. Most recently, since 2009, he served as minister-counsellor and deputy permanent representative at Canada’s Permanent Mission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.

Mr Usher holds BA Honours [History] from Carleton University, 1979; BEd, University of Ottawa, 1980; MEd, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1986.

Ede Ijjasz Vasquez

Senior Director of Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice World Bank Group

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez is the Senior Director for the World Bank Group’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice.

In this position, Mr. Ijjasz-Vasquez leads a team of over 600 technical experts deployed across the world, leveraging global knowledge and collaborating with partners to help tackle the world’s most complex development challenges in: social inclusion and sustainability; mainstreaming resilience in all dimensions of development; territorial and rural development; and urban planning, services and institutions. His team manages a portfolio of about $28 billion and the delivery of more than 200 policy and advisory reports per year.

Before this, he was Director for Sustainable Development of the Latin America and Caribbean Region since November 2011, covering infrastructure, environment and climate change, social development, agriculture and rural development, disaster risk management, and urban development with an active portfolio of about $17 billion.

From 2007 to 2011, he was based in Beijing, where he managed the Sustainable Development Unit for China and Mongolia. Earlier in his career, he managed the global trust-funded programs ESMAP and WSP in energy and water and sanitation, respectively.

Mr. Ijjasz has a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in civil and environmental engineering, with specialization in hydrology and water resources. He has been a lecturer at the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Johns Hopkins University, and at Tsinghua University. He is a Colombian and Hungarian national.

June Webber

Vice-President Coady International Institute and Extension Department St. Francis Xavier University

June Webber joined StFX University September 1st, 2015. With primary oversight of two Institutes: Coady International Institute and the StFX Extension Department, June leads a dynamic team of faculty and staff focused on on-campus and off-campus education and community development programs offered in Canada and around the world to achieve citizen-led, asset-based, community leadership for transformative social and economic change.

As a recognized leader in global health policy and development, June has provided national and global leadership in health policy, health systems, community-based health, and professional development in collaborative partners around the world. She has worked extensively globally within sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Prior to joining the Coady Institute, June worked in various leadership capacities with national and multilateral organizations, including the World Bank, on strategies designed to advance Universal Health Coverage. She was the inaugural director of the Department of International Policy and Development at the Canadian Nurses Association, where she expanded the depth and reach of CNA’s global health program while building a strong policy and programmatic base grounded in the principles of global health and equity.
Working as a health and development professional in Southern Africa from 1988 to 1999, Dr. Webber led community development strategies focused on HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe and the Southern African region, then was in South Africa where she supported the efforts of professionals and activists in the early post-apartheid years to form the first racially-unified health professional association. Dr. Webber completed her PhD (Sociology) while at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Durban.

Estella White

JFK Law Corporation

Estella is a member of the Hesquiaht First Nation and belongs to the House of Kinquashtacumlth. Her traditional name is Hee Naih Cha Chist which means ‘water that glimmers’.

Estella is a practicing lawyer at JFK Law Corporation. Her practice involves advancing and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples in the areas of Aboriginal, Indigenous and environmental law. Estella serves on the executive of the Canadian Bar Association Aboriginal Law Committee and the Aboriginal Lawyers Forum and is a member of the Indigenous Bar Association. Estella is also an appointed member of the BC Aboriginal Justice Council which is tasked with addressing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the criminal and child welfare systems; and more recently Estella became a member of the RAVEN – Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs Legal Advisory Panel.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Estella served as an elected councilor for her Nation and worked as a researcher for the national Accessing Justice and Reconciliation Project, which focused on the revitalization of Indigenous laws and legal traditions. Estella’s work with Indigenous legal traditions continues to be an important part of her practice as a lawyer.
In addition to law Estella is a Board of Director and long-time staff member at Hooksum Outdoor School, with more than ten years of experience leading outdoor education activities and programming in her traditional territory.

Erin Williams

Program Manager, Skills and Competencies Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Kory Wilson

Executive Director, Aboriginal Initiatives and Partnerships British Columbia Institute of Technology

Kory, BSc., LL.B, is Musgamagw Tsawataineuk and Laich-Kwil-Tach. Both nations are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. She is a mum and a member of the We Wai Kai Nation. She is currently the Executive Director of Indigenous Initiatives and Partnerships at BCIT and the National Indigenous Education Chair for CICan. She is a member of the BC Law Society and she practiced Criminal Defense and Family law. She has 20 years experience in Post-Secondary education. She has taught a wide variety of courses at various post-secondary institutions and they arrange from law, racism, Aboriginal and Canadian studies, community development and good governance. Her passion and research is in ensuring success for Aboriginal Learners and other multi-barriered learners. She has a deep commitment to education, both within the institutions and in the community, and she has dedicated her working life to ensuring that Aboriginal learners and other marginalized learners succeed.

Ming Zhang

Sector manager for urban and water for the South Asia region World Bank

Ming Zhang is sector manager for urban and water for the South Asia region of the World Bank. He has more than 15 years’ experience with the Bank, covering urban development, infrastructure, local government, and decentralization. He has worked on many countries in several regions, including Latin America, where he was lead urban specialist, and East Asia, where he was infrastructure sector coordinator for the Philippines. His publications include “Growth and Competitiveness of Brazilian Cities” and “Meeting Infrastructure Challenges in the Philippines.” He received his master’s degree in economics and doctorate in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley.