Board of Directors

The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation is dedicated to promoting and sustaining the Greenbelt as a beneficial, valuable, and permanent feature, enhancing the quality of life for all residents of Ontario. The following is a list of the Board of Directors who help the Foundation in obtaining these goals.

Jan Whitelaw, Chair - justenvironment

Mary Desjardins - TD Friends of the Environment Foundation 

Sandy Houston- George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation

Donna Lailey - Lailey Vineyard Wines Inc.

Rob MacIsaac - Mohawk College

David McKeown - City of Toronto, Toronto Public Health

Rodney V. Northey - Folger, Rubinoff LLP

Robert Pasuta - Hamilton City Council  

Pamela Robinson, Ph.D. - Ryerson University

Jan Whitelaw, Chair

Jan is the vice president of justenvironment, an environmental public affairs consultancy. She is a member of the steering committee of Friends of Rural Communities and the Environment (FORCE). An active participant in the environmental public policy field for 20 years, Jan has been vice president environment for the consulting firm Strategic Services, manager of environment and government affairs for Pepsi-Cola Canada Limited, and senior policy advisor to the premier of Ontario. She holds a masters degree from the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Toronto.

Mary Desjardins

Mary is the Executive Director of the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation and is responsible for defining and leading the strategic direction of the foundation as it enters its twentieth year of operation and beyond. TD Friends of the Environment Foundation (TD FEF) is a national not-for-profit organization, formed by TD Bank Financial Group, with a grassroots focus that funds local projects dedicated to preserving the environment. The foundation works with Canadians who are committed to protecting the environment in their own community and across the country. Mary joined TD in 2008 as the strategic marketing planner on the bank’s environmental file. Prior to joining TD, Mary held a number of senior marketing positions with companies in Canada and the U.S. including Travelex, Thomas Cook Financial Services and Indigo Books & Music. Mary graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a B.A. in English Literature and subsequently received her M.B.A. from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Sandy Houston

Sandy is executive director of the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation. The Foundation focuses on three areas: sustaining the vibrancy of the professional performing arts, ensuring the ecological integrity of our natural, and working lands, and improving the quality of life and opportunity for low-income communities. Prior to joining the Metcalf Foundation, Sandy was a partner at Stitt Feld Handy Houston, where he practised alternative dispute resolution and civil litigation. Sandy maintains a part-time mediation practice and is currently a roster mediator for the Ontario Mandatory Mediation Program. He has designed and taught courses in negotiation, mediation and alternative dispute resolution across Canada and internationally. Sandy earned a LL.B from Queen’s University and holds degrees in English and history from the University of Toronto, and in psychology from York University. He also serves as a director of The Walrus magazine, Pro Bono Law Ontario, Philanthropic Foundations of Canada, The Creative Trust, the Ruthven Park Foundation, Lewa Canada, and a number of privately held companies.

Donna Lailey

Donna left a teaching career in 1969 to become a mother of two daughters. She began her farming career in 1970 and soon became a leader in the grape and wine industry as a founding member of the Vintners’ Quality Assurance (VQA) and served as Vice-Chair of the Grape Growers of Ontario from 1992 to 1996. She is past Chair of Vision Niagara and a founding member of Taste of Niagara. Donna has served as a governor of Niagara College, a director for the Agricultural Research Committee, and as a commissioner for the Niagara Parks Commission. Presently, Donna is a director of Meridian Credit Union, Chair of the Producers of Authentic Ontario Wine, and serves on the Greenbelt Council. She manages a 10 hectare grape farm and is President of Lailey Vineyard Wines Inc.

David McKeown

Dr. McKeown is the Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto and Executive Officer of the Toronto Board of Health. He leads Toronto Public Health, Canada’s largest local public health agency, which provides public health programs and services for 2.6 million residents. He is a physician specialist who has worked in the public health field for twenty-five years. 

Dr. McKeown is also an Adjunct Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. As a volunteer, he has served as Chair of the Laidlaw Foundation Environment Program and as a member of the Board of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and the Clean Air Partnership. He has been an outspoken advocate on environmental health issues and is currently leading the development of a Toronto Food Strategy.

Rodney V. Northey, Vice-Chair

Mr. Northey is a Partner at Fogler, Rubinoff LLP in Toronto, certified as a specialist in environmental law by Ontario’s governing body for lawyers and recognized nationally and internationally by Canada’s Best Lawyers and Practical Law Company’s Which Lawyer? for environmental law.

He provides advice to all levels of government and major proponents on project planning and approvals in the transportation, energy, resource, extraction, manufacturing, and waste management sectors, including the integration of environmental and resource use approvals, federal and provincial environmental assessments, and municipal land use & building code laws. He has been Counsel in more than thirty reported environmental law decisions before Federal and Ontario trial and appellate courts, and Ontario administrative tribunals.
 
He wrote the 1995 Annotated Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and EARP Guidelines Order (Carswell, 1994).

Currently, he is adjunct Faculty Member for Osgoode Hall Law School, Municipal Law LL.M. program, for its course on environmental protection. Past Adjunct Faculty Member: University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Ryerson Polytechnic University, University of Ottawa Law School. Mr. Northey was also a past member of Ontario’s Greenbelt Task Force (2004) and the Minister of the Environment’s panel on environmental assessment reform for green projects in energy, transportation, & waste sectors (2004-2006). He co-chaired the November 2009 major legal conference on Ontario’s Green Energey Act, 2009. He served as a Board member for the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund (now Environmental Defence Canada) from 1990 to 1998, and was their President in 1996. He was also a Warden for his Church over the past three years.

Robert Pasuta

Robert, along with his wife Elaine, owns and operates a family farm on Campbellville Rd in the City of Hamilton. Father of 7, 3 still at home. His Family operates an 80 sow farrow to finish hog operation. Grows 300 acres of corn, wheat, soybeans, and mixed grains. President of the Hamilton-Wentworth Federation of Agriculture. Past president and Councilor of the Golden Horseshoe Pork Producers. Director of the Hamilton-Wentworth Soil and Crop Improvement Association. Sits on the Board of Directors for the Rockton Agricultural Society. Recipient of the Farm Family of the Year award for Hamilton-Wentworth in 2003. Received the OAC Agri-Food and Rural Communities volunteer recognition award 2004. Member of The City of Hamilton's Agricultural and Rural Affairs Advisory Committee, the Conservation Halton Agriculture Advisory Panel and member of CART (Combined Aggregate Review Team), City of Hamilton.

Pamela Robinson, Secretary

Pamela is an Assistant Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University (Toronto). She is also a practicing urban planner whose career began working in a small rural-suburban municipality outside Kingston ON. Her research and practice centre on ways to more meaningfully engage the public in land use planning and design decision-making processes. Dr. Robinson has worked recently with the City of Toronto on their civic engagement efforts and with the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation on their Sustainability Strategy. Her recent academic publications have focused on the challenges Canadian communities face when responding to the emerging problem of global climate change. In 2005, with support from the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation, she began the Ryerson City Builder in Residence Initiative which brings front-line ‘city builders’ from other international cities to Toronto to share their experiences with the goal of injecting fresh ideas into Toronto’s discussions about how to improve our city.

Rob MacIsaac

On February 1, 2009, Rob MacIsaac became the 7th President of Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology.  Under Rob’s leadership, Mohawk has initiated the largest campus renewal project in the college’s history, initiated the first environmental plan among Ontario colleges, established Mohawk as a leader in applied research and forged a first-of-its-kind partnership with Sheridan College to co-locate programs. Rob MacIsaac was the first Chair of Metrolinx, the transportation authority responsible for planning and governing transportation in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA).   Prior to his work at Metrolinx, Rob MacIsaac served as mayor of the City of Burlington between 1997 and 2006. During this time, he became well-known for his regional approach and progressive growth management ideas for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.  Rob completed his undergraduate degree in Economics at the University of Waterloo in 1984 and received a Law degree at the University of Western Ontario in 1987. He was called to the Bar in 1989. Born in 1962, Rob is a lifetime resident of Burlington. He is married to Anne and has two children, Sarah and Catherine.