WHO WE ARE

The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform/Centre pour une Réforme des Politiques d'Immigration is a not-for-profit national organization of citizens who believe that fundamental changes must be made to our immigration policies if they are to serve the best interests of all Canadians.

It was founded in Ottawa, Canada on June 30th, 2009 and grew out of discussions among a group of concerned individuals from across the country on the need for major changes to immigration policy and the creation of a national organization to advocate for reform.

Please scroll down for additional biographical information.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

(President), Background in British television production; in Canada, federal candidate, freelance writer and columnist, public policy research and development.
 
(Secretary), former Ambassador and currently Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute where he studies immigration and refugee policy, national identity and multiculturalism, as well as related national security issues.
 
(Treasurer), formerly Dean of Engineering, Carleton University; founding Dean, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Simon Fraser University; Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Presently Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University.

(Member):  Many years of experience in business, journalism, government and politics, including as former publisher of Saturday Night magazine and executive at Hollinger group of newspapers ;  Principal Secretary  in the PMO;  extensive work in the public policy sector.   Awarded the French Legion of Honour. 

ADVISORY BOARD:

, former Ambassador and former Director General of the Canadian Immigration Service.

, is Senior Strategic Advisor to Ogilvy Renault LLP and former Canadian Ambassador to the United States.
 
, former Ambassador and currently Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute where he studies immigration and refugee policy, national identity and multiculturalism, as well as related national security issues.
 
, Senior Fellow in Canadian Constitutional and Aboriginal Affairs at the Fraser Institute; former head of the British Columbia Liberal Party; designer of BC's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform; author and columnist.
 
, author and economist formerly of Canada's Department of Finance and Bank of Canada, now consultant with Global Economics.
 
, Professor of Economics (Emeritus), Simon Fraser University; Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute.
 
, Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.
 
, National Post Columnist.
 
, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario, author of Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim, nationally published columnist.
 
, Professor Emeritus, Telfer School of Management and Senior Research Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.
 
, Ottawa-based lawyer specializing in the field of Canadian Immigration law, former Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) Refugee Protection Division (RPD) (1997-2000 Toronto).

FRIENDS OF THE CENTRE

CIPR/CRPI gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the following individuals:
 

BIOGRAPHIES, CENTRE FOR IMMIGRATION POLICY REFORM/CENTRE POUR UNE RÉFORME DES POLITIQUES D'IMMIGRATION (CIPR/CRPI)

(Advisory Board) is the former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia where he served from 1990-1992. He was also Ambassador to Bulgaria and Albania. He had diplomatic postings in the Balkans, London and in the Caribbean where he served as Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago from 1985-1990. He was an Assistant Under Secretary for Social Affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Ottawa. From 1985-1990 Bissett was Director General of the Canadian Immigration Service. Upon leaving the Foreign Service he served from 1992-1997 as the Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration in Moscow, helping the government deal with the thousands of Russians returning from the former countries of the Soviet Union.

Derek H.  (Advisory Board) is Senior Strategic Advisor to Ogilvy Renault LLP.    He is Chairman of GardaWorld’s International Advisory Board and a Director of TransCanada Pipelines Limited.  Mr. is a Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and a Visiting Professor and Senior Distinguished Fellow at Carleton University.  He is also the Chair of the Selection Committee for the “Canada Excellence Research Chairs” programme of the Government of Canada.   From October 2007 to February 2008, served on the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan.   

Mr. headed the Transition team for Prime Minister Harper from January to March, 2006.  He was President and Chief Executive Officer of CAE Inc. from October 1999 until August 2004.  Prior to joining CAE, was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Canada International Inc. (1993-1999).

From 1989-1993, served as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States. This assignment culminated a distinguished thirty-year career in the Canadian Foreign Service, during which he completed a variety of assignments at home and abroad, including a period as a Deputy Minister of External Affairs.

From March 1987 to January 1989, served as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister. He was directly involved in the negotiation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. He was the Prime Minister's personal representative (Sherpa) in the preparations for the Houston (1990), London (1991) and Munich (1992) G-7 Economic Summits.

His memoir of government service - “Getting it Done” - was published by McGill-Queen’s in 2005.
 
(Friend) Canadian and concerned citizen.
 
(Friend) BSc (Engineering), Queen's University, 1965; MSc, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, 1972. Retired from the Canadian Armed Forces (Aeronautical Engineering) in 1994 and was employed at GasTOPS, an Ottawa mechanical engineering company, until second retirement in 2000. I seek out and support the actions and policies of those in government, at all levels, and other organizations that further "peace, order and good government" for all Canadians.
 
(Board of Directors, Advisory Board) is a Senior Fellow at The Fraser Institute where he studies immigration and refugee policy, national identity, multiculturalism and related security issues. Early in his career he was involved in the delivery of English and Citizenship classes for immigrants on behalf of the Ontario government and then spent five years as a CIDA advisor training teachers in the Chinese schools of North Borneo. During his 30 years of service with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, he represented Canada in Indochina, Hong Kong, China, Nigeria and Japan and also served as the Chinese-speaking member of the Canadian negotiating team that established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. In the latter part of his career, he held appointments as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Ambassador to Syria and Lebanon, Ambassador to Cambodia and, at headquarters in Ottawa, as Director for Latin American Relations and Director General for Security Services.
 
He has published numerous papers and articles on immigration and refugee policy and spoken at various conferences and symposia as well as appeared before parliamentary and congressional committees. In 2007 he organized the Fraser Institute Conference on Immigration and Security held in Toronto and in 2008 the Conference on Immigration and Integration in Montreal.
 
(Friend) specializes in procurement and ethics. With over 30 years of procurement experience, he is a noted trainer and consultant. He assists firms in reviewing and developing compliant proposals in response to competitive bid solicitation. He also offers courses in procurement and represents firms in their negotiations. He is also a frequent speaker and trainer on ethical topics such as whistleblowing and organizational ethics.
 
Known as the “Whistleblower” from his involvement in trying to stop the abuses that resulted in the Sponsorship Scandal, he is President of Canadians for Accountability. This organization promotes an understanding of whistleblowing, assists potential whistleblowers and advocates for truth, transparency and integrity.
 
He may be reached at [email protected]
 
(Friend) was born and raised in Grand Mere, Quebec. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy (via Royal Military College) in 1963, obtained a degree in mechanical engineering and then served in an exchange program with the Royal Navy (UK) in special operations of the submarine division. He returned to Canada in 1971, earned an electrical (electronic) engineering degree at École Polytechnique Montreal (1973) and worked for multinational companies in sales, service, marketing, training, engineering and planning. From 1995, he was involved in developing new business and problem solving processes in engineering and re-engineering with particular reference to quality improvement, communications, strategic, operational and tactical planning in military and similar divisions of orientation. Since his retirement in 2001, he has developed a growing interest in multiculturalism and immigration issues as well as related security issues such as threats from terrorism. He has created an extensive network to raise awareness of these issues and has attracted widespread attention both in Canada and abroad, particularly after the publication in January 2007 of "L'Affaire Hérouxville." See www.municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca under the tab "Histoire."
 
(Friend) Born and educated in Ottawa. Employed in the finance and health care industries before becoming a federal public servant. Active in community, Queen’s Scout & Bushman’s Thong, Social Action and Senior Groups and Children’s Sports Teams. Participated in Church groups, as a Board Member, retired Elder and currently as a Trustee.
 
(Advisory Board) is a Senior Fellow in Canadian Constitutional and Aboriginal Studies at the Fraser Institute. A graduate of the University of British Columbia (BA Honours in Mathematics and Physics), he also has an MBA from Harvard Business School. This was followed by research work at the London School of Economics. His current areas of study, including several books and many publications in these and other areas, include federalism, governance and relations between aboriginals and non-aboriginals. In 2002, he was commissioned by the BC Government to design the Citizens Assembly on Electoral reform, now the subject of extensive worldwide study as an innovative technique in tackling difficult public policy problems. His columns appear frequently in the Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Free Press and Globe & Mail. In government, he has served as Assistant to the Minister of Northern Affairs, then Executive, and later Special Assistant to the Prime Minister. He has contested three federal elections and, in addition, was elected twice to the BC Legislature and served as both MLA and Leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party.
 
(CFO Board of Directors) was born in 1932 in the small industrial city of Galt (now Cambridge) in Southern Ontario. At the beginning of the war his family moved to Winnipeg, later to Ottawa and then to Montreal. He graduated from McGill University with a BEng in Engineering Physics in 1955, from Stanford University with a masters in Electrical Engineering in 1956, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in Electrical Engineering in 1959. He then joined the faculty of the University of New Brunswick and a few years later moved to Carleton University where he progressed through the ranks to Professor of Engineering, becoming Dean of Engineering in 1969. From that point, his teaching, research and consulting activities were shared with administrative responsibility. Having initiated the School of Continuing Studies at Carleton as its first director, he moved to Simon Fraser University in 1980 to develop its first engineering program, shortly thereafter becoming the founding Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, which boasted a diverse collection of disciplines. In 1990, he continued his westward journey by becoming Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, an extremely well financed university just being formed. Subsequently, he returned to Simon Fraser, initially on sabbatical leave in Ottawa and then retired as a Professor Emeritus.
 
Dr George’s teaching, research and consulting was focused on electrical engineering with a particular emphasis on telecommunication systems. As a student he paid particular attention to systems analysis, studying both electrical and mechanical engineering, mathematics, and statistics. His doctoral thesis dealt with the mathematical analysis of nonlinear systems and such systems remain a particular interest. Adaptive equalizers were his major area of effort in telecommunications, although he also undertook considerable activity in the (interdisciplinary) man-machine aspects of telecommunications (the “wired city”). His administrative work in academe has involved most academic areas from the basic and applied sciences, to the arts and social sciences, to business administration. Now fully retired, he is particularly interested in climate change, population and immigration, and nonlinear systems and chaos theory, For many years he was active with the Friends of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
 
(Advisory Board) is an economist who used to work in the Department of Finance and Bank of Canada. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Toronto and has written many articles and five books on economic and fiscal issues. As a consultant with Global Economics Ltd. (www.global-economics.ca), he has worked for governments across Canada and in more than thirty countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
 
(Advisory Board) is Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at Simon Fraser University and a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He acts as a trustee for two mutual funds operated by Saturna Capital of Bellingham, Washington.
 
He was born in Germany in 1934. He has a BA from Rutgers University (1958) and a PhD in economics from Yale University (1963).
 
He has taught full-time at Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania, and has had temporary appointments at universities in Berlin, Singapore, Cape Town, Nairobi, Oxford, Canberra and Bologna.
 
He was a Reform Party Member of Parliament in Ottawa from 1993 to 1997, serving as the Finance Critic from 1995 to 1997.
 
He has published 18 books and 190 professional articles in economics, dealing with international trade and finance and a wide range of economic policy issues. His recent research interests include capital gains taxation, monetary union and immigration policy.
 
His personal website containing precise references to his publications is found at www.sfu.ca/~grubel.
 
(Advisory Board) With thirty years experience in the field of international security and intelligence affairs, is a Canadian lawyer involved in criminal and national security issues, and Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. Maclean’s, Canada’s most prominent newsmagazine, calls Harris “one of Canada’s leading experts on terrorism.”
 
As a consultant, Harris has made security assessments of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, including energy generation and distribution initiatives. As a lawyer, he has served as an intervener counsel at Canadian terrorism and intelligence commissions of inquiry, most recently the Air India Inquiry and the Iacobucci Internal Inquiry. Harris is a former Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
 
is a regular commentator in English and French on terrorism and national security, and has been a witness at US Congressional subcommittee and Canadian parliamentary committee hearings, his analyses receiving international media attention.
 
In addition to his law qualification, Harris has a graduate degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and in Public Administration from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
 
(Richmond) (Advisory Board) is a graduate of the University of Toronto (Honours English Language and Literature) and McGill University (MA English Literature). In 1966 she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship before teaching literature and composition at Sir George Williams University (later Concordia) and at various Montreal cegeps until 1994. Throughout this period and since, she has reviewed books, lectured and delivered critical reading and writing seminars in various institutions. Active in cultural and community service in Montreal since 1972, she has also provided a weekly column for readers of the National Post since September of 2003. In 2008 she was nominated by Beyond Borders for an award for excellence in raising issues around child abuse; in 2009 she received an award for excellence in promoting gender issues in the media. Her special interests include Canadian values and citizenship.
 
(Chair Board of Directors) was born in northeastern Alberta and educated in Edmonton where she graduated from the University of Alberta with a BA in English literature and a BFA in Drama. She then traveled in Europe before working in British television production, mostly for the BBC, and in the Canadian feature film industry.
 
Citizen’s initiatives on the constitution led to her being selected as an “Ordinary Canadian” in the conferences leading to the Charlottetown Accord. In 1997 she was the Progressive Conservative candidate in Ottawa West Nepean and then became one of the earliest and most active proponents of unity between the PC and Reform parties. As chair of the National Debaters’ Forum, she organized nationally televised debates between leading politicians, commentators and academics such as David Frum, Hugh Segal, Ted Morton, Charles Taylor, Andrew Coyne and Tom Courchene. Most recently she served as Director of Research and Public Policy at the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.
 
Margret’s articles and letters, including several on immigration issues, have been widely published and can be read at her website www.margretkopala.com, which includes all of her freelance columns, written over several years, for the Ottawa Citizen. Her most recent article, “A Critique of the Drug Legalization Agenda: Why Legalization Will Increase Use, Addiction and Crime” was published in the August, 2009 edition of C2C Canada’s Journal of Ideas (www.c2cjournal.ca).
 
Resident in Ottawa since 1986, she is married to political philosopher and journalist Dr. Robert Sibley. They have one grown son.
 
(Friend) is a retired Canadian diplomat. A graduate of two Canadian military colleges and McGill University in civil engineering, he served in the Royal Canadian Navy before returning to McGill to study political science and psychology. His thirty-one year career with the Canadian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs took him on six different postings abroad, and to study and visit about 40 countries. After retiring in 1996, he has chaired several groups, concentrating now on the need to reduce physical demands by humans on the planet. He is on the Board of the Population Institute of Canada.
 
(Advisory Board) is an Associate Professor in the faculty of social sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, and teaches in the department of political science. He is the author of Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim and co-editor of The Indira-Rajiv Years: the Indian Economy and Polity 1966-1991 and has published widely in academic journals such as Jerusalem Quarterly, The Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Arab Studies Quarterly, and Middle East Quarterly.
 
As a newspaper columnist, Mansur appears weekly in the Toronto Sun as well as other Sun Media newspapers. He has also written for the magazine Western Standard (Calgary), and periodically for the National Post (Canada), the Globe & Mail (Toronto), the National Review Online, FrontPageMagazine.com and PajamasMedia.com in the United States.
 
Mansur was born in Calcutta, India and moved to Canada where he completed his studies, receiving a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. Before joining the University of Western Ontario he worked as a Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security in Ottawa and was the candidate of record for the Canadian Alliance in the riding of London-West in the Canadian federal election of November 2000. Mansur is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Islamic Pluralism located in Washington, DC, and an academic consultant with the Center for Security Policy, also based in Washington, DC. He remains active in public affairs, is a frequent analyst and commentator on radio and television, invited as a panelist in PBS Jim Lehrer Hour and has participated in the Doha Debates held in Doha, Qatar, broadcast on the BBC World Forum from London, England. Mansur was presented in September 2006 with the American Jewish Congress’s Stephen S. Wise “Profile in Courage” award.
 
(Friend) has been active in the population and environment field for 40 years with a number of articles on the economic and environmental effects of population growth published in the Financial Post, Toronto Star and Globe & Mail over the past 30 years. He is a graduate in Economics of the University of Western Ontario and past president of Zero Population Growth of Canada. An avid snorkeler, rollerblader, recumbent cyclist, cross country skier and fuel efficient car tweaker, he keeps body and soul together by designing, manufacturing and exporting specialist high tech products.
 
(Friend) BA, MA, Teacher in the British Columbia Public School System, and at Fraser Valley College, Simon Fraser University, and University of British Columbia. Hobby farmer and full-time Rancher of Romney sheep and Angora (mohair) goats. His experience in ranching helped him develop a strong environmental sense. One result was the creation in the mid-1990s of the Lower Mainland Sustainable Population Group, an environmental organization which developed as a response to explosive population growth in BC's Lower Mainland. When this group realized that immigration was the major cause of exploding population, it switched its focus to immigration and changed its name to Immigration Watch Canada. He founded its website in 2003 and has researched and written about dozens of aspects of the immigration issue since then. www.immigrationwatchcanada.org.
 
(Friend) worked for decades in social democratic political and labour endeavours, before becoming active in the Vancouver Natural History Society and hosting a radio program called “Eco-Watch” in the early 1980s. In 2006 he joined the Sierra Club for a brief period before setting up his own blog and posting prolifically in Canada, Australia and the United States. In 2008 he wrote some 172 articles of 200,000 words in total, including 19 for the Canada Free Press. He also became a director of Immigration Watch Canada and co-founder of Biodiversity First while contributing to Jackdaw magazine, the official magazine of Optimum Population Trust UK, and to the SPA newsletter in Australia. He also posted scores of articles in that country, including an article in an Australian academic journal. His most productive achievement is the network of contacts formed both in Canada and abroad whose commitment to Malthusian goals and the cross-pollination of ideas in the furtherance of international cooperation is now underway. www.sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com
 
(Advisory Board) is Professor Emeritus, Telfer School of Management and Senior Research Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. He is also affiliated with the Centre on Public Ethics at St-Paul University, and is a Senior Partner in Invenire, a research and publishing concern. He has authored or edited some 40 books and written a large number of papers on issues pertaining to the economic history of Canada, public management, and governance. He has been active as a journalist on the radio and television network of Radio-Canada since the 1970s, as an editorial writer for some 5 years in the print media in the 1990s, and as a regular commentator on national affairs on TV Ontario from 1995 to 2006. He has also been the Editor in Chief of www.optimumonline.ca—a journal of public sector management and governance that reaches over 10,000 subscribers—since 1994. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, was President of the Royal Society of Canada (2003-2005), and published Deep Cultural Diversity: A Governance Challenge (University of Ottawa Press) in 2008. For more information, see his website, www.gouvernance.ca
 
(Friend) was born and raised in Quebec City. Now retired, Gilles had a successful career as an International marketing/sales consultant.
 
(Friend): Educated in the United Kingdom, graduate of Cambridge University in Geology and Metallurgy. Conducted Research on jet-engine steels for PhD. Immigrated to Canada in 1957, with National Research Council Research Fellowship; employed at the federal Department of (then) Energy Mines and Resources, working in R&D in metallurgy, and energy technology; Departmental advisor on mineral and energy technology and corresponding federal R&D policies; Policy Advisor at Ministry of State for Science and technology; Sessional Lecturer on materials in Engineering, University of Ottawa; from general interest in government policies and programs, joined study group on Canadian immigration policies and programs.
 
(Advisory Board) is an Ottawa based-lawyer whose practice specializes in the field of Canadian Immigration Law. As a former Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) Refugee Protection Division (RPD) (1997-2000,Toronto), she has a unique and in-depth understanding of the immigration process.
 
She has appeared before the Federal Court of Canada; the Immigration Appeal Division; the Immigration Division and the Refugee Protection Division; and the three divisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board on behalf of her clients. She also deals with work permits, spousal and family sponsorships and immigration to Canada. is also a member of the Legal Aid panel and duty counsel in immigration.
 
She was an invited speaker at the Conference on Canada, Immigration and Multiculturalism, hosted by the U.S. State Department in January 2008. She was a moderator/participant at the Fraser Institute National Conference on Immigration in Montreal in June 2008.
 
Her monthly column on immigration is published in the Ottawa Ecolatino newspaper. www.ecolatino.net
 
She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1971 BA in Political Science, earned a BEd from Queen’s University (1972) and an MEd from the University of Ottawa (1978). In 1992 she graduated from the University of Ottawa with an LLB from the Faculty of Law, programme français and was called to the Ontario Bar in February 1994. She is a former secondary school teacher from the Conseil Scolaire de la langue française de l’est de l’Ontario. She practised general and family Law until December 1996 when she was appointed to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

In addition to her professional activities, Ms Taub is involved with the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (AIPSO), international medical doctors (IMGs) whose immigration to Canada was fast-tracked at the various visa offices worldwide to accommodate the doctor shortage in Canada. Ms Taub is working with them to publicize and help to rectify the problems they are encountering in integrating effectively and equitably into the Canadian health care system.

 
(Friend) is the president of the Population Institute of Canada (PIC), an organization concerned with the implications of human population growth in Canada and globally.
 
Madeline has a BSc in zoology from the University of Guelph (1977) and a MS (1979) and PhD (1983) in physiology from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She worked at the University of Ottawa for many years between 1984 and 2001. She has been with Health Canada since 2001, and has been working as a toxicologist evaluator with the Food Directorate since 2002.
 
(Friend) Chartered Accountant and Trustee in Bankruptcy (ret.). Business consultant, corporate re-organization and liquidation, forensic and value-for-money audits, dispute resolution, seminar leader, teacher, media appearances (radio, television, cablevision both as guest and host), book editor, Canadian Association for Black Business in South Africa (Canadian tour), consultant to The Sacred Assembly and World Council of Indigenous Peoples, Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Area Manager and Official Receiver, Bankruptcy and Insolvency). Volunteer activities include civic committees in Ottawa, March Township (Kanata), Arnprior and London; e.g. City of Ottawa Committee for the Canadian Centennial (Executive Committee), Arnprior District Association for the Mentally Retarded (President), Phoenix House for Youth (President), Canada JCI Senate (Founding President), CODE Canadian Organization for Development and Education (Treasurer), Vanier Awards for Five Outstanding Young Canadians (Founding Chair), The Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (Treasurer), Community Care Access Corporation (Director), Ontario Insolvency Association (Director), Ottawa-Carleton Board of Trade (Director), Canadian panelist and speaker at UN and World Peace Symposium (Connecticut).
 
President of POGG Canada, an Ottawa community-based public issues dialogue group with an ongoing major interest in immigration and related matters. www.poggtalk.org

(Board of Directors) has many years of experience in business, journalism, government and politics.  He  founded a weekly newspaper in the eastern Townships of Quebec, then became co-owner of the Daily Record newspaper in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  He was also an  Executive at Hollinger group of newspapers for over 20 years and onetime publisher of  Saturday Night magazine, Toronto.  Having undertaken  several corporate directorships, his career  also includes service in government, notably as a Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office and in the voluntary sector  as chair of several public policy organizations.  He is a recipient of the French Legion of Honour.