Speakers: Sheila Regehr, Mitchell Beer, Ana Guerra Marin and Alysha Jones
Climate change and income insecurity are major, interconnected challenges that limit the capacity of communities across Canada to build or strengthen resilience.
During the past several months, The Green Resilience Project organized over 30 conversations with communities across Canada on the links between climate change, income security and their role in building resilient communities equipped with the tools they need to navigate a changing environment and economy.
These conversations, facilitated by local community partners, explored how policies in these areas can work together to support communities in taking self-directed action on the challenges they face, and barriers to participation in solutions.
Join us on May 4 to hear from some of the key people behind this initiative. Speakers will share insights and trends that emerged from the local conversations as well as implications for community changemakers and for policymaking at all levels.
Speakers
Sheila Regehr, Co-Chair, Basic Income Canada Network
Sheila is a founding member of the Basic Income Canada Network and former Executive Director of the National Council of Welfare. Her 29 years of federal public service spanned front-line work, policy analysis and development, international relations and senior management, with a focus on improving fairness and equality, and on gender and race in particular. She has expertise in areas of income security and taxation, such as child tax benefits, child support, pensions and social assistance. Her insight also comes from experiencing poverty as a young parent.
Sheila is a member of the Steering Committee and a Project Lead for the Green Resilience Project.
Mitchell Beer, Publisher, The Energy Mix
Mitchell Beer is publisher of The Energy Mix, a thrice-weekly e-digest on climate change, energy and the shift off carbon, and serves on the steering committee of the Green Resilience Project.
He traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency to 1977, in climate change to 1997. A proud moment was building a model wind turbine out of wooden stir sticks with his then 11-year-old daughter, and improv comedy practices are often the best part of his week. In October 2019, he delivered a TEDx Ottawa talk on building wider public demand for faster, deeper carbon cuts.
Mitchell is a member of the Steering Committee and a Project Lead for the Green Resilience Project.
Ana Guerra Marin, National Chapter Director, Iron & Earth
Ana Guerra Marin started her career in Colombia, listening to and empowering oil, gas and mining workers at various work sites through forming partnerships and understanding worker issues.
As Ana delved into the extractive industries, she became more aware of how important it is to address the environmental and socio-economic impacts she was witnessing, and how urgent it is to create long-lasting solutions rooted in community-based initiatives that focus on the most vulnerable persons.
This started a 15-year career focused on helping communities achieve self-determination through social and environmental justice in Latin America and Canada. As a white, cisgender, immigrant woman with invisible disabilities, Ana recognizes her position in the world and challenges societal ideas by creating transformative change through a praxis informed by intersectional and Black feminism, womanism, critical race theory, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, decolonization, and critical consciousness.
Ana is the National Chapter Director at Iron & Earth. Iron & Earth joined the Green Resilience Project as a Community Partner and organized a community conversation in Hinton, AB.
Alysha Jones, co-chair Intersectionality and Truth and Reconciliation Committee, Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment (CANE) and member of the District of Sooke’s (DoS) Climate Action Committee (CAC)
Alysha participated in the Green Resilience Project through her work with both CANE and the DoS CAC. Alysha has advocated for a Climate Justice lens for Sooke’s Climate Action Plan and is in the process of creating a community-based Climate Justice Advisory Group. She sees income security and affordability as key issues within Climate Justice discourse and policy development.
https://events.tamarackcommunity.ca/income-security-climate-change-and-community-resilience