I join my fellow Canadians in urging our federal government to enact stronger global warming laws and policies.
About PowerUP
Tzeporah Berman, M.E.S
One of Canada’s leading environmental voices for over a decade, Tzeporah is now the Executive Director and one of the co-founders of PowerUp Canada.
Tzeporah co-founded ForestEthics, a non-profit environmental organization with offices in Canada, the US and Chile that protected the Great Bear Rainforest, the Boreal forest and helped to transform the buying practices of major corporations such as Staples and Victoria’s Secret. Prior to joining ForestEthics, Tzeporah worked for Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Canada. In the early nineties, Tzeporah co-ordinated the largest civil disobedience protest in Canada’s history in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The Royal Museum named Tzeporah “150 people who have changed the face of British Columbia.” In 2007, she appeared in Leonardo DiCaprio’s environmental documentary The 11th Hour. Utne Reader profiled Tzeporah as one of “50 Visionaries Changing the World” and Tzeporah has also appeared in media outlets such as the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Magazine and Reader’s Digest.
Tzeporah was recently appointed to the British Columbia Green Energy Task Force. As well, the Global Observatory Project (globalobservatory.net) at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen has appointed Tzeporah as an Ambassador for Canada.
Tzeporah received her B.A from the University of Toronto and her Master¹s in Environmental Studies from York University. Tzeporah lives on Cortes Island, BC with her husband Christopher Hatch and their two children Forrest and Quinn.
Bruce Lourie
Bruce is President of Ivey Foundation, a private charitable foundation
focusing on environmental change. He is a Director of the Ontario Power
Authority and a Director of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, one of
Canada’s largest community funding agencies. Bruce is the co-author of
Slow Death by Rubber Duck; How the toxic chemistry of everyday life
affects our health. He is a founder of a number of for profit and
non-profit organizations including Summerhill Group, a prominent market
transformation consultancy in Toronto specializing in energy
conservation and renewable energy; the Sustainability Network, Canada’s
leading environmental non-profit capacity building organization;
Enerquality Corporation, and the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’
Network. He has acted on numerous federal, provincial and municipal
bodies advising on energy policy and climate issues. He was the
founding Executive Director of the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance
and the founding President of the Clean Air Foundation. He is Chair of
the Board of Environmental Defence Canada and is an expert in mercury
pollution policy.
John Roy
John Roy was the founder (1996) of Summit Reit which
grew to become Canada's largest (sold to ING for $3.5 Billion)
Industrial REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust), he is also; the
Chairman and founder (1976) of Roycom Advisors Ltd ( a National Real
Estate Pension advisory firm), the Chairman of Coemergence (a Knowledge
Management software firm), Chairman of ISG ( a new public Green
industrial Real Estate company), former director of Crombie Reit and
Crombie Properties (the Sobeys' real estate firm), the founder (in
early 2007) and original sponsor of the non-partisan (some would say
multi-partisan) EEE climate initiative (one highlight of which was to
get all but one of Canada’s former Prime Ministers to sign a public
statement calling for all leaders to take immediate and effective
action to begin moving Canada towards a carbon neutral future during
the last federal election) . He is also on the governing council of the
Authentic Leadership Institute (ALIA) which brings between 200 to 300
social entrepreneurs ('bright lights') from 25 countries together every
year to learn from each other and the Institute's international faculty
. He has also been a trustee of the 1300 student Providence Day School
in Charlotte North Carolina.
John has also been a member of the
platform committee for the Liberal Party of Canada which was co-chaired
by the hon. Bob Rae and Scott Brison . In this capacity John was
instrumental in getting the party and its leader to adopt a carbon tax
as a key policy initiative during the last election.
He has been
married 32 years to Deborah, has two daughters-Melissa and Julianna and
three recently born grandchildren (Cooper and Colton-identical twins
and Jack).
John enjoys reading, writing, golfing, sailing,
horses, travel, healthy eating, light but regular exercise and has an
active meditation practice.
He has been an actor, a scientist
(Bsc with honors in theoretical chemistry and a major in mathematics),
a businessman (MBA- Ivey business school) and a business and social
entrepreneur.
Kevin Grandia
Kevin
Grandia has nine years of experience in communications with the last
three spent entirely in the area of new media. As Director of New Media
at Hoggan & Associates, Kevin is well-known for his expertise in
the areas of social media marketing, online communications, blogging,
search engine optimization. During his tenure, Kevin has managed
DeSmogBlog for three years (www.desmogblog.com),
an award-winning blog project that was named in the Times of London as
one of the Top 50 “eco-blogs” in the world. In 2007, DeSmogBlog won a
“Leadership in Communications” award from the Canadian Public Relations
Society – Vancouver Chapter.
Kevin is also the co-founder of a national online project called Vote For Environment (www.voteforenvironment.ca)
that has been nominated for a World Summit Award, an international
award in recognizing the world's best e-Content and innovative ICT
applications.
Prior to Hoggan, Kevin served as a communications
advisor in the areas of health care, Canadian heritage and Asia-Pacific
trade. Kevin’s areas of expertise also include government relations,
crisis communications, event planning and media relations.
Marlo Raynolds
Dr. Marlo Raynolds is the Executive Director at the Pembina Institute. He has worked with the Institute since 1995 in the development and practical application of triple-bottom-line decision-making tools, energy systems, and strategies for sustainability. Marlo has worked with a wide range of clients including many of the large Canadian energy companies.
Marlo holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering
(University of Alberta), a B.Sc. in Systems Design Engineering
(University of Waterloo), and a Masters in Management and Leadership
for the Voluntary Sector (McGill University). Dr. Raynolds is also an
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sustainable Development at the Haskayne
School of Business, University of Calgary.
Rick Smith, Ph.D.
Rick
Smith is a prominent Canadian author and environmentalist. He is
Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada (since 2003) and
co-author, with Bruce Lourie, of “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the
Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health”, a surprising look
at everyday pollutants and the ease with which they accumulate in the
human body. To illustrate this issue Smith and Lourie experimented on
their own bodies, raising and lowering levels of toxic chemicals in
their blood and urine through the performance of common activities.
A
zoologist by training, Smith completed his doctoral research on an
endangered subspecies of freshwater harbour seal in arctic Quebec with
a nearby community of Cree hunters. From 1997 to 2002 Smith was
Executive Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s
Canadian office and acting Director of the Fund’s UK office for a year.
While at the Fund, Smith created high-profile and successful public
efforts to end Ontario’s spring bear hunt, won a groundbreaking Supreme
Court of Canada ruling striking down the patenting of higher life forms
and spurred the adoption of Canada’s first federal Species At Risk Act.
As
Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada, Smith has
established a reputation as one of the country’s leading environmental
campaigners with efforts such as the high-profile Toxic Nation
campaign, which has tested prominent Canadians for measurable levels of
pollutants in their blood. New government policies that he had played a
leading role in shaping include the establishment of the Greater Golden
Horseshoe Greenbelt, the largest in the world; Ontario’s new Endangered
Species Act, widely viewed as the most progressive in North America;
and innovative new statutes such as the Clean Water Act and
groundbreaking Green Energy Act. Smith was intimately involved with the
creation of the federal Chemicals Management Plan and Canada’s recent
decision to become the first jurisdiction in the world to ban the toxic
chemical bisphenol A from children’s products.
Smith lives in Toronto with his wife Jennifer Story and their two young sons.
Tim Gray
Tim
obtained an undergraduate degree in Biology from Wilfrid Laurier
University in Waterloo, Ontario in 1987 and a M.Sc. in
Botany/Environmental Studies from the University of Toronto in 1992. He
worked as the executive director of CPAWS-Wildlands League from 1990
until 2002, project manager for WWF-Costa Rica in ’02-’03 and CPAWS
National Conservation Director from ’03 to ’05. Tim joined the Ivey
Foundation as Program Director in November 2005.
Tim has made
use of his knowledge of forest and land-use policy and practice through
membership on several Ministerial Advisory Committees including the
Ontario government’s Old Growth Forest Policy Advisory Committee and
The Ministers Council on Forest Sector Competitiveness. Policy analysis
and campaign design and implementation are his areas of greatest focus.
He acted as Co-Chair of the ENGO intervener group in the Ontario Timber
Class Environmental Assessment and as a partner in the Partnership for
Public Lands ENGO collaboration during Ontario’s Lands for Life
land-use planning process. He also has experience in the development
and use of market mechanisms to achieve conservation change and been
involved in the development of FSC Canadian regional standards and
procurement policies in Central America.
Current commitments
include membership on the Ontario Provincial Forest Policy Committee
and the Boards of Directors of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness
Society, PowerUp Canada, Global Forest Watch Canada and Wildlife
Conservation Society Canada.
Natasha van Bentum
Natasha van Bentum, CFRE is an international development and outreach practitioner with over twenty years of experience in Canada and Europe. Specializing in environmental and climate change issues, Natasha is an early advocate of venture or strategic philanthropy as well as the emerging field of social finance. An innovator with an eye for start-up projects, Natasha also specializes in research and program analysis as well as program strategy, development and implementation. With her background in gift planning and major gifts, Natasha serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Gift Planning in Canada, writes frequently on emerging issues and innovative applications in the field, and is a member of the Institute for Legacy Management (UK). In her spare time Natasha can be found on the seven seas. She has circumnavigated the globe three times with her Netherlands-born partner, artist Henri van Bentum.
