Malcolm Azania
Malcolm Azania is a longtime community organizer and teacher, particularly in the areas of Africentric education, racial justice, peace, and anti-fascism. In addition to being an award-winning novelist and print journalist, he has been a community radio host/producer, national television host and associate producer, and writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. In this era of climate chaos and the rise of fascism, much of Azania’s current writing and exploration is focused on eclectic solutions and democratically creating expansive opportunities. To access articles and links related to his keynote, visit his Selected Writing page (content to be available beginning November 20).
Clark Banack
Clark Banack is the Director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities and an Adjunct Professor of Political Studies at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta. Clark has a PhD in Political Science from the University of British Columbia and is the author of God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta (McGill-Queen’s University Press), the co-author of Faith, Rights, and Choice: The Politics of Religious Schools in Canada (forthcoming in 2023 with the University of Toronto Press), and the co-editor of Building Inclusive Communities in Rural Canada (forthcoming in 2023 with the University of Alberta Press). He has also authored several academic articles and book chapters related to Alberta politics, rural issues, religion and politics, education policy, and populism in Canada. In 2022, Clark was the recipient of the Canadian Political Science Association’s John McMenemy Prize. He is currently working on research projects related to rural economic development, rural mental health supports, green energy transitions in rural communities, and political opinion in rural Canada.
Lise Gotell
Lise Gotell is the Landrex Distinguished Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta. Much of her recent work concerns the legal regulation of sexual violence in a context of neoliberalism. Lise has published widely-cited work on Canada’s affirmative consent standard, on gender-based violence policy, on antifeminist backlash, as well as on the pernicious effects of the rough sex defense. Her research has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and in law reform initiatives in Australia, New Zealand, England and Wales and Scotland.
Ana Guerra Marin
Ana Guerra Marin (she/her) is the Communities Director and Just Transition Lead at Iron & Earth. She started her career in Colombia, listening to and empowering oil, gas and mining workers at various work sites through forming partnerships and understanding worker issues. As Ana delved into the extractive industries, she became more aware of how important it is to address the environmental and socio-economic impacts she was witnessing, and how urgent it is to create long-lasting solutions rooted in community-based initiatives that focus on the most vulnerable persons.
This started a 15-year career focused on helping communities achieve self-determination through social and environmental justice in Latin America and Canada. As a white, cisgender, immigrant woman with invisible disabilities, Ana recognizes her position in the world and challenges societal ideas by creating transformative change through a praxis informed by intersectionality and Black feminism, womanism, critical race theory, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, decolonization, and critical consciousness.
Rebecca Graff-McRae
Rebecca Graff-McRae is a Research Manager for the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta, where her areas of research include public healthcare, seniors’ care, and public services. She holds a doctorate in Irish Politics from Queen’s University Belfast, and has held fellowships with the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s, Memorial University Newfoundland, University College Cork, and a SSHRC Post-doctoral Fellowship in Political Science at the University of Alberta. Rebecca is the author of Remembering & Forgetting 1916: Commemoration and Conflict in Post-Peace Process Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2010), and her scholarly work has appeared in Éire-Ireland, Nordic Irish Studies, and Ethnopolitics among other publications. She has also contributed to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives forthcoming 2023 Alternative Federal Budget, as well as Alberta Views magazine. She has previously worked for Edmonton City Council, the Centre for the Advancement of Women into Politics at Queen’s (now the Centre for Gender in Politics), and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland through a competitive internship program. Her recent reports for Parkland include: Misdiagnosis: privatization and disruption in Alberta’s medical laboratory services (2022); Time to Care: staffing and workloads in Alberta’s long-term care facilities (2021); and Blurred Lines: private membership clinics and public healthcare (2017). When not researching or writing, Rebecca can be found practicing her Irish dancing and raising a quartet of critical thinkers.
Ian Hussey
Ian Hussey began his work as a research manager at the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute in 2014 and earned a career appointment in 2019. He is a steering committee member of the Corporate Mapping Project, a seven-year SSHRC grant project on the oil, gas, and coal industries in Western Canada (2015-2022). Ian has conducted a wide range of research for Parkland, including on corporate restructuring and automation in the oilsands industry, Alberta’s coal phase-out, just transition, climate policy, minimum wage, and Alberta fiscal matters.
Before joining Parkland, Ian worked for several international development organizations, including as the co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Fair Trade Network. Ian has degrees in Sociology and in English from Acadia University, and a master’s in Sociology from the University of Victoria. His writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Edmonton Journal, New Political Economy, Alberta Views, National Observer, and The Tyee.
Emma Jackson
Emma Jackson is an organizer, writer and campaigner based on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, AB. She grew up in the Canadian labour movement and first cut her organizing teeth in the student fossil fuel divestment movement. She now works for the global climate justice organization 350.org, organizes locally with Climate Justice Edmonton, and sits on the board of the Alberta Workers' Association for Research and Education (AWARE). She's passionate about how we can build transformative mass movements, defeat Pierre Poilievre and the rise of the far-right, and win the world working people deserve.
Michelle James
Michelle James (she/her) is the Public Policy Specialist with the Women’s Centre of Calgary. She holds an MPH with specialization in social policy and is a health and social equity enthusiast. Michelle has worked in the social services sector, in both BC and Alberta, for over ten years.
Brad Lafortune
Brad Lafortune has worked most of his life on Treaty 6 territory in Alberta as an advocate for worker rights and social, economic and environmental justice. Most recently, he has served as the Director of Campaigns for Western Canada at Point Blank Creative, a progressive communications firm promoting and supporting civil society and labour rights.
Brad previously served as the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Labour for the Alberta New Democrat government, where he helped implement Alberta’s $15 dollar minimum wage in 2018 and set up North America’s first Coal Workforce Transition Fund.
Organizing, advocacy, and political action that centers real stories and builds power are the principles that guide Brad’s work. He is committed to building diverse, inclusive, and equitable networks with Public Interest Alberta to help shape our province’s future.
When he’s not working on campaigns or advocacy work, you can find Brad running around with his daughter Maven and their dog, Rufio. He loves long distance running and when we can all get together, he co-produces and hosts a drop-in singing party called Pub Choir.
Jack Lucas
Jack Lucas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, and a Board Member of the Parkland Institute. His research is focused on democracy and representation in Canadian local governments as well as urban-rural divides in Canadian politics. He is the author or editor of two books and more than thirty refereed journal articles, including Big City Elections in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2021), an analysis of elections and voting in eight Canadian cities, and “The Urban-Rural Divide in Canadian Federal Elections, 1896-2019,” a long-term analysis of the size and character of urban-rural divides in Canadian elections. He is Project Director for the Canadian Municipal Barometer, an annual survey of mayors and councillors across Canada.
Gilary Massa
Gilary Massa (She/Her) is a Human Rights and Equity Educator and Strategist with over a decade of successful experience supporting school boards, advocacy organizations, labour unions, government agencies, and private enterprises through organizational change work that centers on human rights, equity, and inclusion. With roots in both the labour movement and Student movement, Gilary specializes in human-centred program and policy design and evaluation, regularly conducting EDI Audits and organizational coaching and training on issues impacting marginalized communities.
Gilary is driven by her own experiences as a black, immigrant, Muslim woman, and her practice is rooted, first and foremost in the community. She has a deep commitment to creating institutional and government policies and programming that are informed by the people that are impacted the most. She holds a Master in Leadership and Community Engagements from York University where she completed a major research project entitled: Beyond Diversity Training: Road Map for Human Rights and Equity Organizational Change Work
Gilary is a mother of 3 young children aged 7, 4 and 8 months, and is currently spending the year in her home country of Panama city, Panama.
Bo Masterson
Bo Masterson (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Women’s Centre of Calgary. She holds a MSc in International Development and has over 15 years of international and community development experience. Bo moved to Alberta in 2014 and has since followed her passions of community building and creating welcoming communities and social connections for everyone, especially women.
Sam Moore
Sam Moore is an anti-fascist researcher and writer. He is one-half of the collective 12 Rules for WHAT, which produces a podcast on the politics of the far right and has written two books to date: Post-Internet Far Right (Dog Section Press, 2022) and The Rise of Ecofascism: Climate Change and the Far Right (Polity, 2022). His present work, separate from the collective, is focused on a critique of ‘collapsology’ as it appears both on the far right and across the political spectrum.
Michelle Maroto
Michelle Maroto is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta and Director for the Certificate in Applied Social Science Research. Her research interests include social stratification, gender and family, race and ethnicity, labor and credit markets, and disability studies. Her projects address the many dimensions of wealth inequality, the role of household structure in determining economic security, and labor market outcomes for people with different types of disabilities.
In her recent work on disability, Dr. Maroto is currently engaged in two projects. The first involves surveying and interviewing people with disabilities and chronic health conditions to better understand how they have been managing under COVID-19. The second is a multi-city resume-based audit study that examines hiring discrimination against people with physical and cognitive disabilities. In addition to this work, Dr. Maroto is currently embarking on a large-scale mixed methods project, The Great Canadian Class Study, that brings together secondary data, multiple online surveys, and in-depth interviews to provide a better understanding of the complicated dynamics behind social class in Canada.
Alex Silas
Alex Silas was appointed the PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President for the National Capital Region (NCR) in May, 2020 and was elected REVP in May 2021. He previously served as the Alternate REVP for the NCR, having been elected to that position in December 2018.Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, Alex has lived in Ottawa since 2003. Alex attended La Cité Collégiale for the Police Foundations Program.
He first became a member of PSAC in 2010 when he was hired at the Bank of Canada as a security officer, and then became a shop steward for directly chartered local 71250. He has served on various regional committees such as the Young Workers’ Committee as secretary, the Directly Chartered Local Committee as secretary-treasurer, and was elected as a member-at-large in 2018 for the NCR. He was also the Vice-President of directly chartered local 71250.
He is a community activist involved with the $15 and Fairness campaign and Ottawa ACORN, and comes from a long family history of labour activism.
Alex is the first member of a directly chartered local to serve on the National Board of Directors (NBoD) in PSAC’s history.
Feodor Snagovsky
Feodor Snagovsky is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta. His work has focused on the comparative analysis of elections and political behaviour, particularly in the role that political elites play in shaping identity and public opinion. His current research examines the contours and impact of white identity on political attitudes, behaviours, and cultures in Canada. His work has appeared in Party Politics, Electoral Studies, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Australian Journal of Political Science, Government and Opposition, and Parliamentary Affairs.
Temitope Oriola
Temitope Oriola is an exemplary scholar, known for field-defining sociological research on terrorism and policing, for leadership and service to his discipline, and for his commitment to mobilizing knowledge in support of informed public debate. Internationally, he is known for his work on sociological terrorism studies and as a leading scholar on African security (specifically on resource-related political kidnappings in Nigeria and the war against terrorism). In Canada, Dr. Oriola’s scholarship has focused on policing and his work on protest and policing against Black and other minority groups has earned him a well-deserved reputation as a leading expert on police reform. A well-decorated scholar and teacher, Oriola is the 2022 recipient of the Faculty of Arts Research Excellence Award and the 2022 CAFA Distinguished Academic Award.
Dr. Oriola served as Special Adviser to the Government of Alberta on Police Act Reform: participating in several town halls, and citizen engagement sessions that have led into his development of recommendations for reforming Alberta’s Police Act. His community work on policing reform has led him to being one of the most sought-after public intellectuals, in Canada, on policing. He has written over 100 op-eds and news commentaries on these issues, bringing many new elements into public discussion. In 2022 alone, Dr. Oriola has received two research grants of over half a million dollars: the SSHRC Insight Grant (principal applicant) and the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers Research Grant (co-applicant). In addition, Dr. Oriola contributes as a leader within the academy and his discipline: he is a Joint Editor-in-Chief of the international journal African Security, Past President of the Canadian Association of African Studies, President-elect of The Canadian Sociological Association, serves on the Board of Directors of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and is Chair of the University of Alberta Press Committee.
Jason Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton is the author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, as well as seven other books, including the forthcoming The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis (Dutton/Penguin-Random House, 2013). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Progressive, The Daily Beast, Politico, and elsewhere. He is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast.
Jared Wesley
Jared Wesley is a pracademic -- a practicing political scientist and former public servant -- whose career path to the University of Alberta Department of Political Science has included senior management positions in the Alberta Public Service. As lead of the Common Ground initiative, he studies the intersection of political culture, public opinion, and public policy. He is co-author of two leading books: The Public Servant’s Guide to Government in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2018) and Inside Canadian Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020). Jared is a proud member of UAlberta’s Black Faculty collective, and a leader within the Black Youth Leadership and Mentorship Program in Edmonton.
Riley Yesno
Riley Yesno (she/her) is a queer Anishinaabe scholar, writer, and advocate from Eabametoong First Nation.
She has been a contributor and commentator for some of the largest media outlets in Canada and the world, including the New York Times, BBC World News, The Globe and Mail, and CBC National News.
Riley has also travelled the globe speaking at internationally renowned institutions and events, including the UN climate negotiations, the Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality, TEDx stages, and many others.
Her major project right now is to finish her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, where she studies Indigenous/Canadian politics and is a Vanier Scholar.
Her love and gratitude for her communities, passion for radical ideas, and the call she feels to challenge systems is what inspires her work.
