Speakers

Andrew Macklin, Senior Advisor, Media and Public Affairs, WSP in Canada - Emcee

Chris DeSousa, Toronto Metropolitan University School of Urban and Regional Planning

George Boire

Janet Bobechko, WeirFoulds LLP

Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, City Councillor for Scarborough-Rouge Park and Chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee.

Dr. Jennifer McKelvie was elected in 2018 as the Toronto City Councillor for Scarborough–Rouge Park. After being elected to her second term of office in 2022, Jennifer was appointed Deputy Mayor, and in this capacity, assumed the responsibilities of the Office of the Mayor during its vacancy from February to July of 2023.

Deputy Mayor McKelvie also serves as Chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee tasked with advancing Toronto's climate action, ravine and vision zero strategies.

Jeremy Dunn, Commercial Vice-President, HOPA

Joanna Vince, B.Sc. (Hons.), J.D., Partner, Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP, moderator.

Joanna Vince, B.Sc. (Hons.), J.D., is a Partner and Certified Specialist in Environmental Law by the Law Society of Ontario at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP. Joanna has significant expertise assisting clients with environmental approvals and permits for developments and industry. Joanna advises industry, conservation authorities, governments and crown corporations, Inuit groups, tribunals and land claims organizations on environmental law matters.

Joanna advises on the environmental liabilities associated with contaminated lands and how to manage those liabilities for holding, redeveloping, buying and selling contaminated lands. Joanna helps clients navigate the environmental regulatory process. She advises clients about compliance obligations and represents them in managing regulatory inspections and investigations.

Joanna has appeared before environmental tribunals and boards on behalf of clients to obtain, confirm or dispute environmental permits and approvals, including for certificates of property use, wastewater treatment systems, noise and air emissions, and water permits.

Joanna is called to the Bars of Ontario, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.

Kathryn Matheson, M.Env.Sc., P.Geo., QPRA, Team Lead, SLR Consulting (Canada) Limited

Krista Barfoot, President Canadian Brownfields Network, Infrastructure Sector Leader, SLR Consulting - Emcee

A Brownfield Redevelopment Specialist with SLR Consulting, Dr. Barfoot has over 25 years of industry experience and expertise in strategic site planning, risk assessment, vapour intrusion assessment, and risk management. Dr. Barfoot’s technical expertise additionally extends to excess soil management, emerging contaminants (including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances [PFAS]), non-aqueous phase liquid, risk mitigation measures, and stakeholder communication.

Dr. Barfoot is a qualified person for risk assessment (per Ontario Regulation 153/04), President of the Canadian Brownfields Network, chair of the Ontario Environmental Industry Association (ONEIA) PFAS Committee, and an ONEIA Excess Soils and Brownfields Committee member. She has actively led the development of the strategic approach for revitalizing a number of large, high-profile brownfield sites in Ontario, and is based in SLR Consulting's Guelph, Ontario office.

Kyle Nicholls, Vice President, Environmental Health and Safety, Triovest

Kyle Nicholls leads the environmental and health and safety program at Triovest. Triovest is a privately
held integrated real estate investment management and development firm managing 33M sq.ft. of real
estate assets on behalf of institutional and private investors throughout Canada.

Collaborating with investments on acquisitions, financing and dispositions and working with leasing,
asset and property management, Kyle’s primary responsibility is to evaluate and integrate the right
resources and expertise from Triovest’s internal risk management group, 3rd party consultants, legal
counsel, and insurance professionals to prevent, manage or mitigate Triovest’s operational EH&S risk.
Kyle has over 23 years of experience in managing complex soil and groundwater remediations, environmental assessments, safety audits, hazardous building materials, IAQ issues, spills response, drafting of environmental language in leases and other agreements, and the placement and management of environmental liability insurance.

Kyle received an honours degree in Environmental Resource Management from the University of
Western Ontario, is a Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP), and holds both a Canadian Risk Management (CRM) designation from the University of Toronto and an Environmental Professional (EP) designation from ECO Canada.

Dr. Magdelena Krol, York University

Magdalena Krol is an associate professor at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University. Her area of expertise is contaminant hydrogeology specializing in numerical modelling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. Her research activities include optimizing groundwater remediation technologies using renewable energies, simulation of subsurface gas movement at contaminated sites, as well as transport of corrosion compounds to assess the performance of used nuclear fuel canisters. Magdalena completed her doctoral studies in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto and she holds M.E.Sc. and B.E.Sc. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Western Ontario (Western). Prior to her doctoral studies, Magdalena was a remediation engineer at a US consulting company, where she worked on a diverse set of contaminant remediation projects. She is a licensed professional engineer in the province of Ontario. Magdalena has received several distinguished awards, including: the Early Career Award from the International Association of Hydrogeologists, the Lassonde Excellence in Graduate Mentorship Award, the Lassonde Innovation Award and the NSERC Post Doctorate Fellowship (PDF). She has also co-established the innovative Water Technologies for Environmental Research (iWaTER) lab at York University, bringing together researchers from different water disciplines to collaborate on tackling pressing environmental problems.

Mark Richardson, Technical Lead, Housing Now!

Mark J. Richardson is the Chief Technology Officer at Rich Analytics. He has 25+ Years of consulting experience with public-sector clients at all-levels of Government in Canada, and was part of the City of Toronto's Open Data Advisory Group which helped define the City's first official Open Data Master Plan in 2018, and was a citizen-member of the City of Toronto's Planning Review Panel (2015-2017). Mark is the Founder and Technical-Lead of the HousingNowTO.com affordable-housing tracking and transparency project since 2019. Using common tools such as Google maps, photographs, videos and data visualization, HousingNowTO.com removes industry jargon, thereby minimizing misinformation and enhancing transparency and opportunities for genuine civic engagement. The HousingNowTO.com project was given an Innovation Spotlight by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 2021. He is an active ULI volunteer with the Terwilliger Center for Housing in Washington, DC – and a regular collaborator on urban affordable housing innovation projects with University of Toronto’s School of Cities, and Toronto Metropolitan Universities’ School of Urban and Regional Planning.

Maurice LeBlanc, Commercial Portfolio Manager, Environmental and Property Solutions, Imperial Oil

Maurice is the Commercial contact for Imperial’s Downstream surplus properties in Eastern Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Maurice coordinates with Imperial’s environmental team, consultants and brokers for the assessment, risk management, remediation, and divestment of locations within his portfolio. He has recently launched a project to open the dialogue with key municipalities across Canada on the potential for brownfield redevelopments on properties where Imperial has had historical operations.

Meggen Janes, P.Eng. CBN Executive Director, moderator

Meggen Janes is a Principal Environmental Engineer based in Ontario with more than 25 years of environmental consulting experience focused on forensic analysis, risk assessment, soil and sediment management, permitting, remediation, and the brownfield sector. Prior to joining Geosyntec in 2021, she was the Director of Soil and Groundwater Management and Brownfield Approvals at Waterfront Toronto. She spent six years on the Board of Directors of CBN prior to being named executive director. She served the Board in a number of roles, including the past four years as the co-chair of the conference committee.

Paul Bowen

Suvish Melanta, Grounded Engineering, moderator

Tammy Lomas-Jylha, President, Lomas-Jylha Consulting

Tammy has over 30 years of experience in brownfields and contaminated sites across Canada with clients including the Federation of Canadian Municipalities-Green Municipal Fund, Canadian Brownfields Network (CBN), Provinces and Federal Government (Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan). She is recognized as a dynamic and adaptable leader with the ability to coordinate complex multi-partner initiatives and interact effectively with private and public stakeholders. As an executive-level consultant, her work focuses on co-creating visions, strategies, implementation plans, performance measurement tools, and knowledge mobilization approaches to guide decision-making and actions of government and the private sector.

Some highlights: Tammy sat on the Green Municipal Fund Council (The Federation of Canadian Municipalities) from 2005 - 2011 as the brownfield and contaminated site sector representative providing strategic direction and encouraging municipalities to initiate sustainable projects with significant environmental benefits; She is the recipient of the 2009 Canadian Urban Institute’s Brownie Award for Individual Achievement and 2019 HUB (Heroes Underpinning Brownfields) Award from the CBN. Tammy is one of the founding members of the CBN and has been involved in the organization in various ways since its inception.

Tom Li, P.Eng., M.A.Sc., M.B.A., Ontario Business Operations and Development Manager- Environment and Energy, Parsons

Mr. Tom Li is a Principal Environmental Engineer and the Operations Lead for Parsons’ Environment and Energy team in Ontario. He is a Qualified Person (ESAs) Under Ontario Regulation 153/04. He is an experienced remediation engineer having managed 100s of environmental site assessment and remediation projects for various private and public sector clients. He has 20+ years of experience studying, designing, managing and contract administering various remediation solutions that meets the client’s technical and business objectives.

Over the past few years Tom has worked on many local infrastructure projects that involve excess soil planning, property acquisitions and land conveyances; while still working on brownfields for various commercial and industrial clients that has portfolio of sites across the country and globally. He is a co-chair for ONEIA’s Brownfield sub-committee and a council member of QPCO.

Tunde Paczai, Practice Lead, AECOM