Keynote Biographies

Leo Jacobs

Leo Jacobs is Associate Vice President of Aboriginal and Government Relations at Keyano College in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Learning English, graduating high school, becoming a mechanic, teacher, consultant, business owner/manager, visionary and educational leader in northern Alberta, Leo has journeyed from the trap line to the boardrooms of national and international companies. He has witnessed the booming industrial development of the oil sands, which has brought wealth, opportunity and challenge to Aboriginal people. Leo Jacobs believes that education, combined with culturally relevant and innovative support services, is the key to success for the First Nations communities in the Fort McMurray region.

 

 

 

 

Andrew Nikiforuk

For the last two decades, Andrew Nikiforuk has written about energy, economics and the West for a variety of Canadian publications including The Walrus, Maclean's, Canadian Business, The Globe and Mail's Report on Business, Chatelaine, Georgia Straight, Equinox and Harrowsmith. In the late 1990s, he investigated the social and ecological impacts of intensive livestock industries and the legacy of northernuranium mining for the Calgary Herald. His public policy position papers on water diversion in the Great Lakes (2004) and water, energy and North American integration (2007) for the Program on Water Issues at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre sparked both discussion and reform. Nikiforuk's journalism has won seven National Magazine Awards since 1989 and top honours for investigative writing from the Association of Canadian Journalists. His dramatic Alberta-based book, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil, won the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction in 2002. Pandemonium, which examines the impact of global trade on disease exchanges, received widespread national acclaim. His latest book, The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent,examines the world's largest energy project, and is a national best seller. It recently won the 2009 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award and was listed as a finalist for the Grantham Prize for Excellence In Reporting on the Environment. Nikiforuk and his wife and three sons, Aidan, Keegan and Torin, live in Calgary, Alberta. Whether speaking or writing about melting glaciers, educational shams, peak oil, or the destruction of the boreal forest, Nikiforuk has earned a reputation as an honest and provocative voice in Canadian journalism.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights, and she is the Founding Director of Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a network of researchers specialising in ecology, health and sustainability. She has established a school for sustainability Bija Vidyapeeth on the Navdanya Biodiversity Farm in Doon Valley. Her most recent books are Soil Not Oil, Earth Democracy and Water Wars. She is on the Board of International Forum on Globalisation and World Future Council and she is the Vice President of global movement Slow Food International.

 

 

 

Mary Simon was born in Kangiqsualujjuaq (George River) in Nunavik (Northern Quebec) at a Hudson’s Bay Company Outpost in 1947. She has devoted her life's work to gaining further recognition of Aboriginal rights and to achieving social justice for Inuit and other Aboriginal peoples, nationally and internationally. Ms Simon was elected Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Northern Quebec Inuit Association in 1976 and in 1978 was elected 1st Vice-President of Makivik Corporation. and then elected President in 1980. Beginning in 1986, Mary Simon served six years as President of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) the international Inuit organization.  Ms. Simon served as Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs for the government of Canada from 1994 to 2003. She also served as Canadian Ambassador to Denmark (1999-2001) concurrently during her circumpolar position. She is currently president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization.

As part of her work, she took the lead in negotiating an eight country council, which is now known as the Arctic Council. During her Chairmanship of the Arctic Council and subsequently as the Canadian Government, Senior Arctic Official, she worked closely with the Indigenous peoples who are the “Permanent Participant’s” of the Arctic Council, as well as the seven other Arctic Countries.

Mary Simon has received numerous honours for her leadership in developing strategies for Aboriginal and Northern affairs. Throughout her career she has been a champion of social justice for Inuit, with particular focus on children and youth, and the preservation of the Inuit language and culture.

She has been awarded the Order of Canada, National Order of Quebec, the Gold Order of Greenland, the National Aboriginal Achievement Award and the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Ms Simon has received honorary doctorate of law degrees from McGill, Queen's, Memorial and Trent Universities and currently holds a number of board positions including:

• Board Member, National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation
• Board Member and Co Chair – Arctic Net
• Board Member , National Mental Health Commission
• Patron – Nunavut Youth Abroad Program
• Board Member – Tungasuuvingat Inuit
• Champion - Aboriginal Human Resource Council

Richard White is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University. He is President of the Western History Association, Past President of the Organization of American Historians, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. White is also the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2006 Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities. He has been a MacArthur Fellow and held a Guggenheim Fellowship. For his book The Middle Ground: Indians, Empire and Republic in the Great Lakes Region, 1650 -- 1815, Dr. White received five major book prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West(winner of the Western Heritage Award). Among his other major contributions in the areas of American and environmental history, Richard White has also written The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River as well as numerous articles.  He is currently working on several major projects, including a study of transcontinental railroads and what he calls "a history of western North America that focuses on lands that for centuries lay beyond imperial and state control."