Future Canadian leaders awarded $20,000 Action Canada Fellowships
July 26, 2007
Seventeen exceptional Canadians are the new 2007/2008 Action Canada Fellows.
They include the Montreal co-founder of a genocide-intervention network, an Ottawa public policy specialist, a Toronto social entrepreneur, the Toronto founder of two successful software companies, a Vancouver emergency-room physician interested in public health policy and the executive director of Carcross/Tagish First Nation in the Yukon, the latest First Nation to achieve self-government.
Selected for their outstanding leadership initiative and commitment to Canada, each Fellow receives $20,000 and participates in Action Canada’s unique, 10-month program focused on leadership development and Canadian public policy issues. This year’s fellowship theme is Canada as a World Leader. Fellows will focus on ways to enhance Canada’s international leadership profile and its impact in world affairs.
The Fellows, all in their early career years, will take part in three, eight-day working conferences in Vancouver, Ottawa and Quebec. They will also work in task-force teams on issues related to the fellowship-year theme and then produce and present a report on their work at the final conference in Quebec City.
Throughout the program, Fellows learn from the guidance of mentors who are current leaders in government, business, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions. Fellows undertake their fellowship in conjunction with their studies or career activities.
A national organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Action Canada is building leadership for Canada’s future by creating a network of informed, emerging leaders. It is a partnership between the private sector and the federal government.
The organization was co-founded in 2002 by Vancouver businessman and philanthropist Samuel Belzberg and Simon Fraser University president emeritus Jack Blaney in partnership with the Department of Canadian Heritage, Department of Justice Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, and Industry Canada.
Action Canada is affiliated with Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver, B.C.
Below is a complete list of Fellows. For more information and complete biographies please visit www.actioncanada.ca.
2007/2008 Action Canada Fellows
A lawyer specializing in biotechnology law, Melanie Bourassa Forcier is now completing doctoral studies in intellectual property law at McGill University, Montreal. She has a strong interest in developing public policy that will support innovation and access to new medical technologies.
Listed among New Brunswick’s 21 leaders for the 21st century, Tim Coates is completing a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the co-founder of 21inc., a non-profit organization working to increase capacity for change in New Brunswick through leadership, dialogue, networks and ideas.
An emergency physician at St. Paul’s hospital, Vancouver, Rebecca Comley has a keen interest in public health and health care which stems from her medical practice experience in Canada’s remote north. She holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University.
A Ganaxtedi clan member, Justin Ferbey is executive director of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation in the Yukon, which is the latest First Nation to achieve self-government. He chaired a federal/territorial committee to bring the final agreement on this to ratification and has been deeply involved in establishing fiscal architecture and governance for First Nations seeking self-government.
A first-year student of medicine at the University of Toronto, Benjamin Fine is the founder and executive director of STAND Canada, a national student organization with 20 university campus chapters dedicated to Darfur advocacy and activism.
An engineer from LaSalle, Quebec, Marc Fournier partnered with the Canadian Space Agency to research and write his master’s thesis on an inspection system for the International Space Station. He has since completed several work internships around the world and is now pursuing a doctorate in applied computing at the European University of Strasbourg.
Nicholas Gafuik, is the director of program development for the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, an organization that prepares people for principled political participation. He is also a founding director of the Alberta Environmental Stewardship Coalition and has served as an international election observer in the Ukraine and Cambodia. He currently resides in Ottawa.
The director of sustainable markets at Environment Canada in Ottawa, Jane McDonald has extensive experience in sustainability issues and was formerly associate vice president of CO2e.com, the environmental brokerage arm of New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald. She currently sits on the advisory board for the Research Network for Business Sustainability at the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario.
A chartered financial analyst and former principal with corporate finance firm Octavian Capital in Toronto, Oliver Madison is now president of Me to We Style Inc., a Toronto social enterprise committed to providing ethically manufactured, quality apparel for socially-conscious consumers.
Shauna Mullally is pursing a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is involved at the local and national levels with Engineers Without Borders, has worked at the Medical Research Council (U.K.) in the Gambia, West Africa and participated in the African Union Summit women’s forum on gender-responsive governance in post-conflict societies.
Taylor Owen, from Vancouver, is a Trudeau Scholar and doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, U.K. He has worked for a range of international research institutes and served in policy advisory roles for the UN, the Canadian and Norwegian governments, and numerous NGOs. He writes widely on the causes and consequences of conflict and peace-building, and on Canadian, American and European foreign policy.
A 2007 Sauvé Scholar, Emily Paddon has worked with the International Crisis Group, The Watson Institute for International Relations and World Affairs Television. She has also worked and volunteered in West and North Africa. Paddon is pursuing a doctorate in international relations at Oxford University but will continue her research this year in Montreal at McGill University under the Sauvé scholarship.
Named one of Canada’s “Best and Brightest” by Maclean’s magazine, Benjamin Perrin is a lawyer, a law professor at UBC, Vancouver and the founder of The Future Group, an NGO that combats human trafficking. He is interested in domestic and international criminal law, international humanitarian law, comparative constitutional law and human trafficking.
The founder of two software companies, Voice Courier Inc. (VCi), and Voice Courier Mobile Inc., Tom Rand sold both profitable companies in 2005 and founded VCi Green Funds to provide angel and venture capital to companies developing emission-reduction technologies. He is now vice president, environmental science at Canadian Hydrogen Energy Company in Toronto and is also pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Toronto.
Gino Reeves is managing director of Place aux Jeunes du Quebec (PAJQ), an organization that helps young Quebeckers find employment or establish businesses in regional Quebec. Reeves, who is from the Gaspe and holds a master’s degree in regional development, is keenly interested in youth entrepreneurship.
Andrew Sniderman is the co-founder of the Washington-based Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET), an organization working to prevent and stop genocide. He is also a Fellow in the Parliamentary Internship Programme and has worked as a political organizer and policy associate.
Named by Maclean’s magazine as one of Canada’s 50 Canadians under 30 to watch, Irvin Studin is a policy specialist who has held senior policy positions with the Canadian and Australian governments, advising on issues such as foreign policy, democratic governance and national security. A former Rhodes Scholar, he is the editor of What is a Canadian? Forty-Three Thought-Provoking Responses (Douglas Gibson Books, McClelland & Stewart, 2006). He lives in Ottawa.
