CONFERENCES & EVENTS - AquaNet IV
Biographies of Keynote Speakers and Panelists
► Salle de bal
 Dr. Ron Doering
Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP
and former president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
" Risky Business: Science and Food Safety Regulation "
Food safety regulators cope every day with applying science-based standards to complex fact situations but it is a particularly risky business when the science is uncertain. The shortcomings of the classical model of risk analysis are becoming more obvious: it does not adequately describe what regulators actually do or provide useful guidance for decision-making. Expert quantitative risk assessments disguise the underlying subjective framework of assumptions and understate the high degree of uncertainty. Pcb's in farmed salmon is an excellent case study of the problems with all stages of the classical model, particularly in its failure to adequately recognize the distinction between the science risk and the perception risk.
Ronald L. Doering, B.A., LL.B., M.A., LL.D., is a partner in the Ottawa offices of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP where he practices law with the Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs Group. He is the former President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He has lectured and written widely on a range of public policy issues, most recently in the areas of public health law, aboriginal and environmental law and in all aspects of food law. He writes a popular monthly column on Food Law for the leading trade magazine Food in Canada. He is an adjunct Professor, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph. (Ronald.doering@gowlings.com)
► Place d'Armes
Dr. Ron Doering
Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP
and former president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
 Ronald L. Doering, B.A., LL.B., M.A., LL.D., is a partner in the Ottawa offices of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP where he practices law with the Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs Group. He is the former President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He has lectured and written widely on a range of public policy issues, most recently in the areas of public health law, aboriginal and environmental law and in all aspects of food law. He writes a popular monthly column on Food Law for the leading trade magazine Food in Canada. He is an adjunct Professor, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph. (Ronald.doering@gowlings.com)
Mr. David Rideout
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
 Mr. Rideout began his career in 1974 as a federal public servant with the Fish Inspection Service. A number of other jobs within government followed, including Executive Director of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council and Director General Aquaculture, Restructuring and Adjustment. In January 2000, he left the latter position to become the Executive Director of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, a position he holds today.
Mr. Rideout was also appointed to AquaNet's Board of Directors in June 2000 and assumed the Chair's position in November 2002.
Mr. Mark Burgham
Director, Public Engagement and Government Relations,
Aquaculture Management Directorate, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Biography
 In May 2001, Mark Burgham joined the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as Director of Policy for the Office of Sustainable Aquaculture. Following the Minister's announcement in March 2004, to emphasize stronger collaboration with federal and provincial partners and to contribute to public and consumer confidence, he was appointed as Director, Public Engagement and Government Relations in the new Aquaculture Management Directorate. Mark came to DFO after 8 years in various policy positions at Natural Resources Canada.
Mark joined the federal public service in 1992, after five years with the Ontario Ministries of the Environment and Natural Resources. Mark holds an MSc from the University of Ottawa and BSc Honours from Queen's University.
Mr. Guy Gilron
Senior Scientist, Ecotoxicology, Cantox Environmental Inc.
Biography
 GUY GILRON is a Senior Scientist (Ecotoxicology) at Cantox Environmental Inc. (CEI), Mississauga, ON. Mr. Gilron graduated from the University of Guelph (1988) with an M.Sc. in Marine Ecology, is a Qualified Professional, Risk Assessment (QPRA) in Ontario (O. Reg. 153/04), and a Registered Professional Biologist (R.P.Bio.) with the College of Applied Biology in British Columbia. Mr. Gilron has over fifteen years experience in aquatic ecology and ecotoxicology, relating specifically to environmental effects on aquatic resources. Mr. Gilron has played a key role in numerous large-scale environmental monitoring programs in aquatic ecosystems. Guy has had specific experience in the implementation of environmental site assessments, comprehensive risk assessments, and site-specific risk assessment (SSRA) studies in Ontario, across Canada, and overseas. Mr. Gilron has conducted numerous peer reviews of ecological risk assessments (ERAs) on behalf of private sector and regulatory clients. Moreover, Guy has been active in the review, development, validation, and implementation of toxicity tests for Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, and the Canadian International Development Agency. In addition to authoring over a dozen primary literature articles, Mr. Gilron has also published several invited book chapters relating to toxicity testing in ecological risk assessment. Mr. Gilron is a sessional lecturer at the University of Guelph and Ryerson University, and is also a regular speaker speaker and panelist at scientific workshops and conferences.
Mr. Jeff Chatterton
President, Checkmate
Biography
 Jeff Chatterton has handled communications for a number of environmental health crises - including the Walkerton water disaster, chemical fires, and environmental cleanup zones. Chatterton is the author of the online newsletter Defending Good Science, and his work on communicating trust and credibility has appeared in a number of publications. His most recent work – Framing the Fish Farmers – was published by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, and examines the role activists play in the aquaculture industry. He is the President of Checkmate Public Affairs, a company dedicated to "Defending Good Science" for agricultural technologies. (chatterton@checkmatepublicaffairs.com)
► Place d'Armes
 Ms. Gilly Griffin
Director of Guideline Development, Canadian Council for Animal Care
Biography not available at this time.
Mr. Ken Hirtle
Senior Vice President, Heritage Salmon Company Limited
 The consumer is confused. Marketing farmed salmon in a hostile environment presents challenges that need to be addressed Qualified research can help but is only part of the answer. A solid communication strategy and a message that will resonate with consumers is essential to digging this industry out of its present quagmire and returning to double digit growth.
Biography
Ken Hirtle is Senior Vice President of Heritage Salmon Company Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of George Weston Limited. He is responsible for the company's sales and marketing of farm raised salmon. Mr. Hirtle is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, a former employee of Proctor & Gamble of Canada Ltd. and National Sea Products Ltd. He served as Chairman of the Canadian Association of Fish Exporters, is presently a member of the Fish & Fish Products Advisory Group (SAGIT) for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade and is on the New Brunswick Premier's Roundtable for the Environment and the Economy. Ken is also currently a director of the Nature Trust of New Brunswick and the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in addition to his duties as Chair of the Agrifood Seafood Value Chain Roundtable.
Ken and his wife, Linda, have two sons and currently reside in Saint John, N.B.
Heritage Salmon Company Limited is a leading marketer of farmed salmon to North America from corporate and independent sites in New Brunswick, Maine, British Columbia and Chile.
Dr. Sheldon Ungar
Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto At Scarborough
 Climate change activists seek to overcome complacency, whilst advocates of nuclear power cannot shake the fear. GM foods are tolerated in North America but proscribed in Europe. Can such differential reactions to a range of social problem be explained? In the absence of an all-embracing theory, I outline a series of concepts that help elucidate variations. Foremost is the idea of issue cultures, which provide symbols and selection principles that affect the type of social problem likely to gain attention in public arenas and perhaps engender social scares. At the base of issue cultures are embedded dread factors, akin to a collective unconscious, as exemplified by the horror of "invisible poisoning" associated with radiation. Social problems acquire trajectories, whereby claims-makers are impelled and constrained by historical, scientific and practical characteristics that accrue to the problem. Creating urgency-or reassurance-also depends on bridging metaphors, popular culture templates that can overcome scientific ignorance (or indifference) and allow people to think about a social problem. The upshot is a set of applicable ideas applicable to aquaculture.
Biography
Dr. Sheldon Ungar is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. His research has focused on real world events that have produced social scares, including the nuclear arms race, emerging diseases, and global climate change. He has also researched media responses to these events, and their relation to public reactions. Ungar's current work is an examination of knowledge and ignorance among university students, seeking to identify what students do know, and how popular culture and new media affect students' "cultural literacy."
Ungar has authored, The Rise and Fall of Nuclearism: Fear and Faith as Determinants of the Arms Race (1992), and edited other books. He is widely published in academic journals, having authored articles for publications including Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, British Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, and Journal of Higher Education. Last year he was asked to published a summary of his research on climate change in Climate Research. His latest paper, "Silencing Science: Partisanship and the Career of a Publication Disputing the Dangers of Secondhand Smoke," is to be published in Public Understanding of Science.
Since 1991, Ungar has been a member of the Environmental and Security Panel of the Canadian Global Change Program, Royal Society of Canada. As part of that body, Ungar helped author a 1996 report outlining issues and research priorities for scientists across Canada. For the past two summers he has been an invited researcher at the Coastal Research Institute of the GKSS-Forschungszentrum in Geesthacht, Germany.
► Jacques Cartier
 Dr. Susan Stonich
Chair, Environmental Studies Program
University of California
Biography
Dr. Susan Stonich is an associate professor of anthropology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received a B. Sc in mathematics from Marquette University, an M.A and Ph.D degrees in anthropology from the University of Kentucky.
 Dr. Susan Stonich’s research interests focus on environmental development; environmental justice; poverty and food security; and grassroots environmental movements. She has extensive field experience Mexico, Central America, and the rural United States. She has recently expanded her research interests to include the geographical area of Asia and the role of advanced communications and spatial information technologies in the globalization of resistance to the shrimp farming industry. Her projects have concentrated on the consequences of non-traditional export growth along the Pacific Coast and also on the effects on human health and nutrition associated with intensified tourism development. Her studies focus on the radialization of local groups around environmental issues and the emergence of grass-roots environmental movements of the poor. She has also begun research and implemented new classes on environmental health and social justice issues related to agriculture in Santa Barbara County. In this regard, she is involved in developing a bilingual environmental education project with the Santa Barbara schools.
In 1997, Dr. Susan Stonich was appointed to the National Academy of Science / National Research Council, Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change where she is involved in a number of interdisciplinary projects with her colleagues on the committee. Dr. Stonich is also a valuable member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of AquaNet.
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