Patricia Lane's column profiles young climate leaders working across Canada.
Patricia has been a lawyer for 35 years specializing in collaborative decision-making and public policy creation. She has worked in every region of Canada and federally. Patricia has worked in areas as diverse as tax policy, human rights, economic and small business development, restructuring health care, labour law, human rights, securities law, climate change, real estate and land development, wilderness protection, renewable energy, housing, and Aboriginal rights and title. She has been a climate change campaigner for 15 years and an environmentalist all her life. She was the longest serving Director on the Sierra Club Board until 2019 and continues to actively support the organization in a variety of ways.
This 24-year-old Dalhousie student used her master’s thesis to explore the emotional responses of politically active youth across Mi’kma’ki (Atlantic provinces, Gaspé Peninsula and the northeastern region of Maine) to the climate crisis.
She helped found Pour nos enfants / For Our Kids Montréal, and now a core group of 30 moms and two dads remind decision-makers that a future for families is worth saving.
"It is our future. It is not enough for you to have a token youth in your decision-making circle. Foreground our voices and show you are listening," says SFU grad WeiChun Kua.
By helping Surrey, B.C.'s 600,000 residents co-exist with salmon, she is restoring and building resilience in ecosystems across the second-most populous municipality in the province.
Katharine Zywert’s just-completed PhD thesis shines a light on transformative approaches to health care that improve both human and planetary well-being.
