Expert panel members

Johanne Gélinas — Panel Chair

Johanne Gélinas is a Partner in Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton’s Strategy and Performance Consulting Group and in charge of its Sustainability and Greenhouse Gas Management practice. Before joining Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, she led the Sustainable Development and Climate Change practice at Deloitte, from 2007 to 2012.

Johanne was the Canadian Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development from 2000 to 2007. She also served for 10 years as Commissioner with the Government of Quebec BAPE (Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement). She recently led the think tank and public consultation on the social acceptability issue for the Ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles du Québec.

Johanne is a certified Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) trainer. She has been teaching at the Collège des administrateurs de sociétés since 2011. She is currently Chair of the Board of Protégez-Vous magazine and a member of the Board of Directors for the Espace Libre Theatre. She was also Chair of RECYC-Québec’s Board of Directors.

She received the 2009 UQAM Recognition Award for her innovative vision and commitment to sustainable development. She also was awarded the Prix Femmes d’affaires du Québec, and won the 2012 Korn/Ferry Award for Enterprise Governance Excellence. Première en affaires recognized her as one of the top eight individuals in Quebec’s governance industry.

Doug Horswill — Panel member

Doug Horswill retired as Senior Vice President, Sustainability and External Affairs, Teck Resources in April 2014. Doug holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Mineral Engineering and a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the University of British Columbia.

Following 20 years in the Public Service, culminating in the positions of Deputy Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations and Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources for the Province of British Columbia, Doug joined Cominco Ltd., later Teck Resources Ltd, as Vice President, Environment and Public Affairs in September 1992. He spent the next 22 years developing and leading Teck’s sustainability, community relations, environment, health, safety and external relations areas including Teck's international zinc and health program.

Doug is past Chairman of the Mining Association of Canada and the Mining Association of British Columbia. He recently served as Chairman of the Board of Resource Works and is a member of the Boards of the Sunny Hill Health Care Centre for Children, The International Fertilizer Development Center, Providence Health Care and the Canadian International Resource Development Institute. He is past Board Member of CARE Canada and the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Research Center. He is an Executive in Residence for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Doug was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee medal for service in international development charitable sector.

Rod Northey — Panel member

Rod Northey is an environmental lawyer and partner in the Toronto office of Gowling WLG. He is in his 27th year of private practice and certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a specialist in environmental law.

Rod is author of the 2016 Guide to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (LexisNexis), a 1994 annotation of federal environmental assessment law and panel reviews, and law journal articles on infrastructure planning, and federalism and environmental law.

Rod is an adjunct faculty member at Osgoode Hall Law School's Municipal Law LLM program for a graduate course on environmental protection. He is recognized by his peers in national and international listings, including Lexpert, Canada’s Best Lawyers, and Who’s Who Legal: The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers.

Throughout his career, Rod has been active in environmental law reform. He has been retained by the federal government to deal with the precautionary principle, apply environmental assessment to Crown corporations, and apply environmental assessment to projects outside Canada. He has also appeared before parliamentary committees on constitutional law and environmental assessment. In Ontario, Rod was on the 2004 task force to establish the Ontario Greenbelt, and on the 2005 advisory committee to reform environmental assessment to better address green energy, transit and waste management projects.

Outside his legal practice, Rod is chair of the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation and the Greenbelt Fund.

Renée Pelletier — Panel member

Renée Pelletier is the managing partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP, one of Canada’s leading Aboriginal rights law firms. Renée is Maliseet and grew up in Nova Scotia. Renée practices Aboriginal rights and environmental law. She regularly advises and represents her Indigenous clients on consultation matters, regulatory and environmental matters, reserve land management and impacts and benefits agreements. Her practice also includes work on Aboriginal and treaty rights litigation and specific claims. She has litigated judicial review applications and appeared before various levels of courts on motions, trials and appeals. Renée was cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in the high-profile case R. v. Ipeelee, 2012 SCC 13. Renée is especially passionate about assisting her Indigenous clients in achieving greater self-determination. She also strives to incorporate the legal traditions of her Indigenous clients into the work she does on their behalf.

Renée has worked at Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, volunteered for the Native Women’s Resource Centre, and worked with the Innocence Project about the case of Native American Activist Leonard Peltier. Renée was also a Native Court Worker at College Park Criminal Court.

Renée is a member of the New Brunswick and Ontario Bars. She is French Acadian, her first language is French, and she is fluently bilingual in both French and English. Renée is also a member of the Indigenous Bar Association.