Steering Committee Members
Eric Chaurette, Program Manager, Inter Pares, Ottawa. Eric is a Program Manager with the international development organization Inter Pares based in Ottawa.
Arzeena Hamir, Comox Valley, BC: Arzeena is a certified organic farmer from the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. She has a BSc in Crop Science from the University of Guelph and an MSc. in Sustainable Agriculture from the University of London, UK. In her role as Food Security Coordinator in Richmond, she helped campaign for a GE Free Zone in 2012 and was on the Board of GE Free BC (a CBAN member group) for four years. She is currently on the Board of the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC and active in farmland preservation issues.
Maureen Kirkpatrick, Retailer, Toronto. Maureen is the Standards Coordinator at The Big Carrot in Toronto, a worker owned grocery store that has been advocating against GMOs in our food system since 1999. Maureen has worked closely with CBAN for many years in her role at The Big Carrot, particularly through participation in the campaign to Stop GM Alfalfa but also in supporting other campaign education work with CBAN. In her role at the Big Carrot, Maureen participates in many food and retailer industry conferences. Maureen serves on the Board of the Non-GMO Project, of which The Big Carrot is a founding member and is on the board of the Canada Organic Trade Association.
Devlin Kuyek, Researcher, GRAIN. Devlin is a researcher based in Montreal, Quebec, who has worked with the international organization GRAIN since 2003. He is the author of The Real Board of Directors: The construction of biotechnology policy in Canada, 1980-2002 and Good Crop, Bad Crop: Seed Politics and the Future of Food in Canada, published by Between the Lines Press November 2007.
Heather Lee, Toronto, Ontario: Heather is a co-founder of No-More GMOs, a CBAN member group based in Toronto that is focused on local advocacy and education. She studied Canada’s regulatory and policy-making framework for GE Foods for her undergraduate and graduate theses and has given talks on GMOs everywhere from community events and farmers’ markets to national academic conferences. She has collaborated to raise awareness, and counter misinformation, about GE foods with community groups, co-ops, the Organic Council of Ontario, the National Farmers Union, and non-GMO focused distributors, farmers, producers, and retailers. Heather is also a founding member of the Toronto Non-GMO Coalition.
Tom Rudge, Operator Aurora Mountain Farm (Chair, CBAN Steering Committee). Tom raises heritage pigs, cows, organic chickens, organic cereal and hay crops and household vegetables on 160 acres in the Yukon. His family also operates the Government owned mobile abattoir. Tom has a BSc in Agriculture and is a founding member of the local Fireweed Community Market and a member of Growers of Organic Food Yukon. He has also volunteered with Food Secure Canada and Slow Food. He is a food advocate and communicates locally and regionally with other food security agencies and territorial government branches.
Ann Slater, Farmer, Ontario. Ann is an organic farmer who is active in the National Farmers Union (a CBAN member group) and the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) (a CBAN member group). She is a member of the EFAO’s GMO Committee and is a past Vice-President of Policy for the National Farmers Union. Ann has worked closely with CBAN for many years including through her work with the NFU where she was a vital part of developing and implementing the strategy to Stop GM Alfalfa. Ann has spoken at CBAN events and on panels with CBAN staff. She has assisted CBAN’s research and assisted partnerships in CBAN’s campaigns. Ann is an organic market gardener from just south of St. Marys in Oxford County, Ontario and farms on a small corner of her brother’s organic dairy farm, on a farm that has been farmed by successive generations of Slater’s since about 1860.
