Lindsay is a dedicated champion for workers and families in London. Born and raised in London she understands the challenges faced by people in our community. For over 15 years she has fought to make sure the federal government is working for you. As a Member of Parliament Lindsay led the fight to ensure that people in her community are getting the services they deserve.

Dulce Colín es Directora General de Igualdad y Atención a la Violencia de Género en la Secretaría de las Mujeres de la Ciudad de México, instancia responsable de dictar las políticas de igualdad sustantiva entre mujeres y hombres, de transversalización de la perspectiva de género en la Administración Pública de la Ciudad, y de prevención, atención y erradicación de la discriminación y todo tipo de violencia contra las mujeres.

Anteriormente fue responsable de la política de gobierno abierto de la Ciudad de México como Directora General de Gobierno Honesto en la Agencia Digital de Innovación Pública de la Ciudad de México. Cuenta con más de 10 años de experiencia en procesos de incidencia en políticas públicas y participación ciudadana desde distintos organismos, como el Fondo de Población de Naciones Unidas (UNFPA), la organización TECHO, la Asociación de Emprendedores de México (ASEM), y Ethos-Laboratorio de Políticas Públicas.

Es Licenciada en Periodismo por la Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García y estudió la Maestría en Políticas Públicas y Género en la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Además, cuenta con estudios de evaluación de políticas públicas en el Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), y de políticas culturales en la University College Dublin.

 Marissa started her journey in women’s rights doing field work with different organizations around the world. From her travels in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Nepal, Italy, The Balkans and more, she has studied and researched the social position of women and girls in different places. Marissa has spent time with sex workers in South Asia and Italy, worked with local women leaders in different communities, and taught English to women and children in India, Nepal, Kenya and Italy.

Marissa lived in Italy for a number of years, which is where her mother’s family is from and where her experiences supporting sex trafficking survivors began. Marissa has held lasting and loyal friendships with survivors of human trafficking and wartime sexual violence around the world and believes ‘the sisterhood’ can help heal immense and extreme trauma.

Through her travels and research, she has made strong ties and fostered deep relationships with fellow feminists and women’s rights defenders around the world. After a long time away from home, Marissa returned to Canada in 2013 and founded Aura Freedom International, plunging head-first into projects and programs addressing gender-based violence and sexual exploitation. Her research on different forms of violence against women in Nepal has been recognized by different human rights organizations. Marissa is also an active community leader in Toronto, lending her experience to different projects around the city addressing violence against women and girls and sexual exploitation, on top of her work with Aura Freedom International.

Bold and energetic, Marissa’s passion is watching the ripple effects of placing knowledge and power into the hands of women and advocating for governments to address the root causes of violence and exploitation. Her ability to move people through her words and writing is helped by her theatrical past, including writing, acting, singing and clowning in countries affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS. Her heart is wide open and her approach to problems is head-on, wasting no time. She is driven, yet remains compassionate in the face of the many atrocities that Aura Freedom works to eradicate. Her dream is to see peace and freedom enjoyed by all women and girls, and it’s her love for her daughter that keeps the beat of her heart.

Sureya Ibrahim is the Supervisor of Community Connections here at CL&D and the founder of Mothers of Peace Regent Park. She is also part of Community Solidarity Against Racism in Construction (CSARC) and a board member at the Harari Heritage Centre. She was born in Harar, Ethiopia and came to Canada when she was 17, moving to Regent Park shortly after. Ever since she has been volunteering, studying, and working in the community becoming a loved local community champion.

Jillian is an accredited communications professional specializing in transportation and urban issues. She is a former Vancouver City Planning Commissioner and holds a Master of Urban Studies degree from Simon Fraser University. She was born and raised in Vancouver and writes about urban issues at This City Life —named one of the best city blogs by The Guardian.

Nuzhat is Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) and has been a long-time national board member and volunteer with the Council. She also serves on the board of directors of the pluralist foundation and has served as chair and member of several other non-profit boards, including the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, ACCES Employment, and South Asian Family Support Services. She is multilingual and holds a BA in French language and literature from the University of Toronto and an MLS from the University of Western Ontario.

She is the principal of Fair Practices Consulting, a management consulting firm specializing in equity, inclusion, diversity, human rights and accessibility. She has developed and delivered anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies and training programs. She has led and conducted systems reviews of employment practices, professional licensing/registration practices, workplace culture/environment and developed and implemented solutions for issues resulting from the reviews. She is also a consulting associate with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), where she provides diversity and inclusion consulting services to a range of clients. Nuzhat served as the first and only executive director of the Office of the Fairness Commissioner (OFC) from September 2007 to August 2017. The OFC’s mandate is to ensure that anyone applying for licensure to practice in a regulated profession in Ontario is treated fairly regardless of where s/he was educated.

Adel Gamar is Co-Founder and CEO of GLG where he manages the delivery and implementation of the firm’s leadership development and change management services. He is driven to forge effective collaborations among business, government, and non-profit sectors, while creating lasting and impactful solutions. Over the course of his career, Gamar has advised senior leaders of companies, non-profit organizations and governments throughout the world. He served as Education Specialist at UNESCO, Policy Fellow at Harvard Law School, and has delivered executive programs at Harvard.

Ellen Woodsworth is the founder of Women Transforming Cities International Society, WTC, and former Vancouver City Councillor.  She is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant calling for cities to put an intersectional gendered lens and use disaggregated data, on policies, programmes, budgets, funding, staffing and governance to create women-friendly cities that work for everyone.  Ellen talks about why and how to put an intersectional gendered lens on climate change, housing, transit, income, health care, electoral reform and the COVID 19 recovery strategies. WTC is planning its third successful Hot Pink Paper municipal election campaign from local neighbourhoods to city hall.

Elaine Coburn is Associate Professor, International Studies, and Director of the Centre for Feminist Research, York University in Toronto, Canada. Her work is concerned with unjust inequities; how we understand them and how we challenge them. The author or more than 70 publications, her work has appeared in the Canadian Review of Sociology, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the International Sociological Review, Political Studies and Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Thought. She writes for Canadian Notes and Queries, Herizons and the Literary Review of Canada. 

Kanisha Acharya-Patel executive director at the Women’s Healthy Environments Network in Toronto, Ontario, an organization that aims to prevent environmental health harms and protect women and other vulnerable populations from adverse health effects from toxic substance exposures. Kanisha is from Waterloo, Ontario, completed her Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources Conservation at the University of British Columbia, and currently is in her last term of law school at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, where she is specializing in environmental law and Aboriginal and Indigenous law. Kanisha worked with WHEN as a research associate prior to going to law school and is excited to be back and using her position to advocate for evidence-based laws and policies that prioritize the protection of the environment and human health. In her spare time, Kanisha spends time baking, throwing pottery, and fostering cats.

Maja Tait was first elected to Sooke Council in 2008 and served two consecutive terms on Council before being elected as Mayor in 2014 and again in 2018.

Maja was raised in the hamlet of Bragg Creek, Alberta and lived in both Japan and Calgary before moving to Vancouver Island in 1997. Attracted to Sooke’s natural setting and community spirit, Maja moved to Sooke with her husband Alex in 2006. In 2015, while serving as Mayor, Maja and Alex welcomed their first child, a son they named Ewan.

While serving in office, Maja has been honored to represent the interests of Sooke residents on various panels throughout the region and the province, including:

• Sooke Region Primary Health Care Services Working Group – Chair
• Sooke Community Health Planning Steering Committee & Western Communities Primary Care Network Steering Committee
• Union of BC Municipalities: Currently serving as Past President – Chair of both Convention and Resolutions Committee. Maja was elected to the Board as 3rd VP in 2016 and has served on numerous committees since then. She was fortunate to represent UBCM on two international missions to Cambodia (focus on supporting and attracting more women to local government).
• Local Government Leadership Academy – Vice President
• FCM – Federation of Canadian Municipalities – Past Board and Committee member (2018-2020)
• CRD: Capital Regional District Board, Hospital Board & Housing Corp – Director, Sooke & Electoral Area Parks and Recreation Commission (SEAPARC), Finance and Governance Committee, Parks & Environment Committee and First Nations Relations Committee – Chair
• Victoria Regional Transit Commission

Maja retired from her career in property management to focus on her family and community in 2019. Maja has been a dedicated community volunteer her entire life and served with organizations like Girl Guides of Canada, the Craigdarroch Castle Museum Society, and the Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre. Maja, also a former Toastmaster, completed the Leadership Victoria program in 2006 and was awarded the prestigious Alumni Award in 2015.

Maja’s international heritage has taken her abroad to places like India, Europe, and Singapore and she looks forward to further travel when restrictions ease. Weekends will find her enjoying quiet moments in her garden and exploring the area with her family.

Mohua Mukherjee is the Energy and Climate Finance Expert; Program Ambassador Pro-Bono at the International Solar Alliance. She has worked as a senior development professional and team leader for over twenty-five years at the World Bank in Washington DC. Her recent interests lie in solving financial issues related to energy access, distribution utility reform, energy policy and renewable energy.

Dr. Robin King is the Director, Knowledge Capture and Collaboration, at the Ross Center for Sustainable Cities at the World Resources Institute (WRI) and an adjunct professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is an institutional economist with experience in public, private, international organizations and NGOs with international experience, with a focus on US, Latin America, and India. The work has ranged from sovereign debt and international trade negotiations to institutional approaches to infrastructure financing and governance to more recent work at WRI on integrating land use and transport planning and implementation and ensuring that equity and inclusion is embedded in our work. Her work has sought to bridge different communities, disciplines and approaches to catalyze solutions. Highlights of her career include working on the economics and trade component of the Mid-East peace talks for the US State Dept; converting a mainframe database to a web based, quadrilingual system at the OAS; helping start a science and technology policy think tank in India (CSTEP); and most recently, moving WRI’s work in urban development from merely focusing on urban design to incorporating governance and finance aspects as well and emphasizing equity throughout our portfolio of projects. Robin has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas-Austin, and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from Georgetown University. She has held positions at Mellon Bank, the US Department of State, the OAS, the G7 Group, and the Center for the Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP, in India) before coming to WRI, and grew up in Niagara Falls, NY in the old days when we could ride our bikes across the border with a smile and a dime.