The Influencers
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
The idea of change is never an easy one, especially when things have been done a certain way for decades. We encourage you to meet our influencers. The leadership team that is driving this initiative, with years of experiences, a passion for change and ideas that innovate the way we govern our cities.
Nathalie Des Rosiers
Nathalie Des Rosiers is the Principal of Massey College. From 2016 -2019, she was MPP representing the riding of Ottawa-Vanier. She was Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry from January to June 2018. Prior to politics, she had been the Dean of Law, Common Law, University of Ottawa (2013-2016), General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (2009-2013), Vice-President, Governance, University of Ottawa (2008-2009), Dean of Law, Civil Law (2004-2008) and President of the LAW Commission of Canada (2000-2004).
With Peter Oliver and Patrick Macklem, she co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Canadian Constitutional Law (2017). She also wrote, with Louise Langevin and Marie-Pier Nadeau, L’indemnisation des victimes de violence sexuelle et conjugale (Prix Walter Owen, 2014). She has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, honorary doctorates from Université UCL (Belgium) and the Law Society of Ontario, le Prix Christine Tourigny (Barreau du Québec) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Richard Albert
Richard Albert, born and raised in Canada, is the William Stamps Farish Professor of Law and Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published over 20 books on constitutional change and reform, including Revolutionary Constitutionalism (Hart, 2020), Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Canada in the World: Comparative Perspectives on the Canadian Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He is a former law clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada, and a graduate of Yale, Oxford and Harvard. He can be reached at www.richardalbert.com.
Alexandra Flynn
Dr. Alexandra Flynn is an Assistant Professor at University of British Columbia’s Allard School of Law. Her teaching and research focusses on municipal law and governance, and administrative law. Professor Flynn's current SSHRC-funded project focuses on the legal relationship between Indigenous communities and municipal governments. The goal of this project is to illuminate the legal obligations of municipal governments, including the duty to consult and accommodate, to create reciprocal, respectful relationships with Indigenous peoples and First Nations.
She is the author of many academic and popular media contributions, including an edited volume on the governance of Canadian smart cities, co-authored with Mariana Valverde. She is currently working on a book entitled Micro Legal Spaces: the Laws of Neighbourhoods and Communities, which examines overlapping geographies and governance of city spaces, including the formal and informal bodies that represent residents. She has a long history working in law and policy, and is a past TEDx speaker and a frequent media commentator.
Alan Kasperski
Alan Kasperski is the Conference “Connector”, bringing together the people, events, places, and things that will make for a successful and important event. Trained as a systems analyst, he has a varied and interesting c.v. that has seen him provide information on commercial credit and reports on major Canadian businesses for Dun & Bradstreet, working in the PMO and on a Prime Minister’s tour staff during a federal election, being a founding employee at Dell Canada, to advising a variety of European and Asian businesses on opportunities in the Canadian market. He has a long-held belief that democracy and its’ institutions has become stale, uninspiring and must evolve to better serve Canadians in the 21st-century. He acts and advocates on that belief.
Darren H. Chow
A visual storyteller, acting as creative director for the Massey Cities Summit’s branding and design. Darren is a strong believer in a multichannel approach to design and deployment. He has tapped all this experiences and skillsets from some of the best companies in Canada including BlackBerry, CTV, CIBC, Autodesk, Appleby College and most recently RBC as Senior Manager of Digital Media in the area of Thought Leadership and Economics. In this age of digital consumption he flourishes in the audiences need for more engaging content and believes users want to experience the content they consume rather than just read it.