TabGroupAbout Environment Probe Environment Probe is a division of the Energy Probe Research Foundation, a Toronto-based environmental and public policy research institute.
The organization works to expose government policies that harm not only Canada's forests, fisheries, waterways, and other natural resources but also the economy. It is committed to developing and promoting alternative resource policies that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
Launched in 1989, Environment Probe first focussed on the opportunities in the Free Trade Agreement to improve environmental standards. It has since shifted its attention to putting other market mechanisms to work for the environment. Central to its work is the promotion of property rights and decentralized decision making to empower individuals and communities to protect natural resources. It is also a sharp critic of subsidies to resource industries.
Where markets cannot be relied on to protect the environment and public health – where property rights cannot be assigned or enforced, or where natural monopolies exist – Environment Probe advocates the strict enforcement of statutes and regulations. The organization works for regulatory processes that internalize risks and costs, enhance efficiency, and promote accountability and transparency.
Environment Probe works both to inform public opinion and to influence decision makers. It has written three books, contributed chapters to 13 others, and authored numerous studies. Several leading university texts use Environment Probe's findings to illustrate economic principles. Environment Probe regularly writes for the national press and frequently appears on radio and television. It addresses conferences, seminars, and university classes in Canada and abroad. It also influences public policy through its participation in environmental assessments, public inquiries, and regulatory consultations.
Elizabeth Brubaker, Environment Probe's executive director, is a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. The Round Table is an independent federal agency that provides advice to government and the public on the integration of environmental conservation and economic development. It commissions research and produces publications on a variety of sustainable development issues. A current NRTEE project of special interest to Environment Probe is Water Sustainability and Canada's Natural Resource Sectors.
TabGroup2Funding Environment Probe is financially independent of governments, corporations, and unions. The bulk of its funds comes in the form of tax-creditable donations from the general public. The organization has received grants from several charitable foundations, including the Helen McCrea Peacock Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, and the Margaret Laurence Fund. It also earns income from publications sales and fees for articles, papers, and speaking engagements. TabGroup3Principles The following principles have evolved from Energy Probe Research Foundation's 30-year-long analysis of the root causes of environmental destruction and of the elements of a sustainable society.
♦ to establish and preserve rights and responsibilities; ♦ to account fully for social and environmental costs based on the values assigned by the rights holders; and ♦ to internalize risks and costs (and to eliminate moral hazards) (2) in decision making.
Notes 2. "Moral hazard" refers to people's increased incentives to take risks when insured. TabGroup4Board and Staff CURRENT STAFF
Brubaker is the author of Greener Pastures: Decentralizing the Regulation of Agricultural Pollution, published by the University of Toronto's Centre for Public Management in 2007. The book traces the evolution of laws permitting farms to create nuisances that harm their neighbours. It argues for a return to a rights-based regulatory regime in which individuals and communities are empowered to protect themselves from polluting farms. Brubaker's previous book, Liquid Assets: Privatizing and Regulating Canada's Water Utilities, was published by the University of Toronto's Centre for Public Management in 2002. Brubaker has written and spoken extensively on water – including its pricing, allocation, regulation, and quality – during the last decade. She has also participated in a number of regulatory hearings regarding water, including the Demand-Supply Plan Hearing in the early 1990s (the environmental assessment of Ontario Hydro's nuclear and hydroelectric expansion plans) and the Walkerton Inquiry, for which she prepared a study on water utility privatization. Brubaker is the author of Property Rights in the Defence of Nature (published by Earthscan in 1995), a book investigating the extent to which the property rights regime developed under the English common law can serve as a force for environmental protection. She has also worked on the establishment of property rights in fisheries. Brubaker has contributed chapters to 13 books published in five countries. She has written frequently in the popular press and has lectured in Canada, the United States, France, Australia, and China. Brubaker is a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, an independent federal agency that provides advice to the government and the public on the integration of environmental conservation and economic development.
Magmedov has more than 20 years of experience as a researcher, consultant, and lecturer in Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He has addressed a variety of environmental issues, including nature conservation, groundwater pollution, sampling and monitoring, remediation, and solid waste management.
CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS Chair, Gail Regan
From 1972 to 1982, Ms. Regan was an assistant professor and lecturer at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Education. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise, the Family Firm Institute, the Council for Canadian Unity, Women's College Hospital, and is president of the Friends of Women's College Hospital. Patricia Adams
Before coming to Probe International, Ms. Adams worked on a variety of development projects for the International Development Research Centre and Acres International. She taught economics in Jamaica, advised the World Council of Churches’ energy program, chaired the Nairobi-based Environment Liaison Centre, a coalition of 300 environmental and citizens’ groups from around the world, and was associate editor of the British magazine, The Ecologist. She is a co-founder of the International Rivers Network and the World Rainforest Movement. Ms. Adams has appeared before Congressional and Parliamentary Committees in the US and Canada and has given speaking tours of the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Chile. She has written editorial page articles for major daily newspapers around the world and has appeared on Canadian, British, Australian, French, Thai, and Japanese TV and radio. Max Allen
Andrew Coyne
Mr. Coyne received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and History from Trinity College, University of Toronto, and a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics. He has been an editorial writer and columnist for the Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, and the National Post. In addition, he is a frequent commentator on television and radio. Mr. Coyne has been nominated for four National Newspaper Awards, winning twice. He is also a past recipient of the Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism. Glenn Fox
Mr. Fox's teaching and research interests include the economics of property rights and environmental stewardship and economic methodology. He is a student of the Austrian school in economics, established by Carl Menger at the University of Vienna in the late 19th century. Ian Gray
Clifford Orwin
Mr. Orwin has published dozens of articles and chapters on a range of topics—anywhere from ancient and modern political thought to current political issues such as humanitarianism and religion in contemporary politics. Mr. Orwin is a regular contributor to the National Post, The Globe and Mail and other periodicals. His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Hebrew. Mr. Orwin received his MA and PhD from Harvard University and his BA from Cornell University. He has taught as a visitor at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Michigan State University. He has also held positions at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Lisbon. He has served on the Panel on Political Science at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington. He is the recipient of three NEH Fellowships, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award and a St. Michael’s College Teacher of the Year Award. Andrew Roman
Mr. Roman's broad practice has recently included energy, competition policy, communications, environmental and municipal law. He has appeared before several parliamentary and legislative committees and made numerous submissions to government ministers and senior officials on matters of law and public policy. He has also testified as an expert witness on economic regulation before the Nova Scotia and Manitoba Public Utilities boards. Roman represents clients before a range of boards, commissions and tribunals, and at all levels of court in Ontario, as well as the Federal Court and Supreme Court of Canada. Mr. Roman is the author of more than 90 publications, including reports, articles, monographs and a book. His writings have been cited in judgments by the Supreme Court of Canada. He has also contributed editorial assistance to two recent English legal texts by Lord Woolf. Mr. Roman has been a sessional lecturer at four law schools and was chair of National Resources Law at the University of Calgary during the winter-spring 1998 term while carrying on his law practice. Andrew Stark
Mr. Stark has contributed to a number of periodicals and journals, including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail and the New Republic. He has also lectured and presented at universities across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Mr. Stark holds a PhD from Harvard University, an MSc from The London School of Economics and a BA from the University of British Columbia. Annetta Turner
As a National Vice-President of the Consumers Association of Canada she served on the Minister's Committee on Franchising and the Liquor Advisory Council – both with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, and the Social Responsibility in Advertising Committee of the Canadian Advertising Advisory Board. Previously she was Director of Nutrition Services, Associated Milk Foundations of Canada, and Nutritionist and later President of the Board of the Visiting Homemakers Association. She received a BA from the University of Western Ontario and a Diploma in Community Nutrition from the Canadian Dietetic Association. Margaret Wente
Ms. Wente has had a diverse career in Canadian journalism as both a writer and an editor. She has edited two leading business magazines, Canadian Business and ROB Magazine. She has also been editor of the Globe's business section, the ROB, and managing editor of the paper. Her columns have appeared in the Globe since 1992. For the past two years she has been writing full-time for the paper, and she is a frequent commentator on television and radio. Ms. Wente was born in Chicago and moved to Toronto with her family when she was in her teens. She has won numerous journalism awards. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, and an MA in English from the University of Toronto. She is married to Ian McLeod, a television producer. NOTABLE PAST BOARD MEMBERS David Nowlan David Nowlan’s work covered a variety of fields, including economic growth and technical change, development planning, transportation economics, urban and regional economics, land economics and the economics of regulation. His current research focuses on urban land-use and taxation issues, on metropolitan and regional growth, and the relationship between central cities and metropolitan regions, on transportation pricing and on the relationship between transportation and land use. Mr. Nolan served as vice-president of research. In a long and varied career, Nowlan acted as a consultant to governments at all levels—from the City of Toronto to the United Nations. He was also Tanzania's senior transportation economist in the mid-1960s, a member of the Commonwealth Mission to Uganda in 1979, vice-chairman of the United Nation's Expert Group on Landlocked Countries in the mid-1980s, a consultant to the Jamaican government on the structure of the University of the West Indies, and he has served as an adviser on many of Toronto's city and metropolitan committees. He held degrees in engineering from Queen's University, and in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1965, Mr. Nowlan received his PhD in economics from the University of Toronto. In 1998, he received the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Faculty of Arts and Science. Served as a director from 1998-2009 Walter Pitman Walter Pitman’s pivotal win in a 1961 by-election helped lay the foundation for the soon-to-be-formed New Democratic Party. Since then, Mr. Pitman has been a leading figure in both the Ontario and Toronto arts and academic scenes. Mr. Pitman has held posts as the Former Executive Director of the Ontario Arts Council, President of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and Dean, Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Trent University. He has also been president of Canadian Civil Liberties and president of Canadian Association of Adult Education. He has an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, University of Toronto, and is an Officer, Order of Canada and member of the Order of Ontario. Served as a director from 1983-2000 John Sewell John Sewell is an influential voice in both the city of Toronto’s political and physical landscape. As a former mayor of Toronto and contributor to a number of city-based publications, Mr. Sewell has been a critic and leader in the development of Toronto for more than 30 years. After working as an alderman for the Toronto City Council from 1969 to 1978, Mr. Sewell was elected Mayor for a two year term. Throughout his time as both an alderman and as mayor, he was a strong advocate of city-based initiatives – including increased and affordable public transportation and a larger stock of public housing. He was also a leading defender of gay rights, long before the issue was taken up by other politicians in Toronto. Since leaving politics, he has been a regular contributor to a number of publications, including:The Globe and Mail, Now, Post City Magazine and Eye Weekly. He’s also the author of eight books. Mr. Sewell was born in Toronto in 1940, and raised in the Beaches area of the city. He received a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto in 1961 and a law degree from the University of Toronto Law School in 1964. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2005. Served as a director in 1991 Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs was one of the foremost writers, activists and critics on city-planning and community-based initiatives. Her 1961 treatise On the Life and Death of Great American Citieshas become one of the most influential works on the failings of inner-city life and the politics and business decisions behind urban issues. Her support of community-based activism has helped prevent the construction of highways, protect local neighborhoods and—in one case—resulted in the ousting of a New York City Parks Commissioner. Rather than relying on academic studies, Ms. Jacobs used her keen sense of observation and support of neighborhood initiatives to explain modern cities. She helped lay the foundation for local activism and community development long before they became common elements to urban life. Publishing nine books and dozens of articles, Ms. Jacobs was a leading voice for a new approach to city planning. Ms. Jacobs was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1916 and later moved to New York City during the Great Depression. While living in New York City, she helped organize resistance to then Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’ plan for top-down neighborhood cleaning and highway building. In opposition to the Vietnam War, she moved her family to Toronto in 1968. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974 and lived in Toronto until her death on April 25th, 2006. "Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon… Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together,” she said. “The combination is not coincidental." Served as a director from 1981-1997 David Suzuki David Suzuki is considered by many to be the face of the environmental movement in Canada. He is the co-founder of the Suzuki Foundation, as well as an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. Mr. Suzuki has been explaining and discussing environmental issues for more than 30 years— and he’s currently the host of CBC’s popular show, The Nature of Things. He also held a post as a full professor at the University of British Columbia from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He is now professor emeritus with UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute. He has received dozens of awards for his work, including the Roger Tory Peterson Award from Harvard University. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Order of British Columbia. Throughout his career he has received 20 honorary doctorates—from both domestic and international universities. Served as a director from 1988-1990 John F. Helliwell is internationally-recognized economist and one of the pioneers in incorporating the idea of well-being into economic models. Mr. Helliwell often questions how economic movements and social capital affect the well-being of citizens. Mr. Helliwell is Arthur J.E. Child Foundation Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and co-director (with George Akerlof) of CIFAR's program on "Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being". He is also Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia, a member of the National Statistics Council and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He's held a number of advisor and teaching positions at universities, think-tanks and governments around the globe. He's also won dozens of awards for his work and published a number of books, articles and editorials. Mr. Helliwell studied at Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and at the University of British Columbia, where he is an Emeritus Professor of Economics. Served as a director from 1992-1994 David Bronfman David Bronfman is a prominent activist and writer. He's the co-author of the vegetarian cookbook, Calciyum: Delicious Calcium-Rich Dairy-Free Vegetarian Recipes.
TabGroup5Foundation The Energy Probe Research Foundation is one of Canada's leading environmental and public policy research institutes. Our divisions -- Energy Probe, Probe International, Environment Probe, Urban Renaissance Institute, Environmental Bureau of Investigation, and the Margaret Laurence Fund -- are well known public-interest defenders. The goals of the Foundation are to provide the public, media, business, and government with information on resource-related issues, to promote sustainable resource use, to encourage individual responsibility and accountability, and to to help Canada contribute to global justice and prosperity. EPRF's senior public policy researchers have been with us for 20-30 years, demonstrating extraordinary commitment to the environment, showing tenacity in pushing for fundamental rights, and winning honours including entries in Canada's Who's Who, recognition by Time Canada of Canadians likely to make a difference to the country, membership in Ontario's Independent Market Operator, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, and various conservation awards. But the foundation is much more: Over the years it has been assisted by a motivated team of interns, volunteers, and administrative staff and supported by tens of thousands of Canadian donors from all walks of life. Our work is also distinguished by its academic standing. Our books -- published by academic publishers in Canada, the United States, and France -- have been adopted by university courses, and our work appears in leading university texts. Our books have also been translated into the Spanish, Bengali, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, Estonian, and Finnish languages. Like our staff, our board of directors has shown a long-term commitment to our foundation and to the environment. Over the years, board members have included leaders of Canadian society such as Thomas Berger, George Erasmus, the Right Reverend Lois Wilson, George Ignatieff, Jane Jacobs, Margaret Laurence, Walter Pitman, and David Suzuki.
Probe International is an independent environmental advocacy group that fights to stop ill-conceived aid, trade projects, and foreign investments. But more importantly, we work to give citizens the tools they need to stop these projects – the rule of law, democratic processes, and honest and transparent accounting. Probe International goes where few others tread. We resurrected the doctrine of odious debts to challenge the enforceability of today's Third World debts; we argue that markets can work to improve people's living standards and protect their environment when they are decentralized, competitive, and governed by the rule of law; we maintain that state-to-state aid has undermined political accountability and promoted a culture of corruption in both the donor and receiving nation and should be abolished; we have warned for the past decade that carbon credit schemes will threaten Third World environments; and we think the best way to protect the environment is to entrench and enforce the individual and collective property rights of citizens.
Energy Probe is the consumer and energy research team at EPRF, active in the fight against nuclear power, and dedicated to resource conservation, economic efficiency, and effective utility regulation. Most recently, with Lawrence Solomon's blockbuster book, The Deniers, Energy Probe has led the charge that the science of man-made global warming is not settled and defended those scientists who work to enlighten and inform the debate.
The Urban Renaissance Institute is dedicated to helping cities and their regions flourish by removing the many impediments to their proper functioning. To accomplish this, URI does research to measure and reveal the wealth that cities generate, to examine the organized complexity of cities, their parts and their features, to promote diversity of uses within cities, to investigate policies that foster thriving, sustainable city regions, and to demonstrate why sound urban policies are indispensable to wilderness and farmland protection.
Environment Probe works to expose government policies that harm not only Canada's forests, fisheries, waterways, and other natural resources but also the economy. It is committed to developing and promoting alternative resource policies that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. Launched in 1989, Environment Probe worked for a Free Trade Agreement that improved environmental standards and now works to tap market mechanisms to protect the environment. Central to its policies is the promotion of property rights and decentralized decision making to empower individuals and communities to protect natural resources. It is also a sharp critic of subsidies to resource industries. Where markets cannot be relied on to protect the environment and public health – where property rights cannot be assigned or enforced, or where natural monopolies exist – Environment Probe advocates the strict enforcement of statutes and regulations. The organization works for regulatory processes that internalize risks and costs, enhance efficiency, and promote accountability and transparency. Environment Probe researchers work both to inform public opinion and to influence decision makers by publishing books, contributing chapters to others, authoring studies, writing op-ed pieces for the national press, and participating in environmental assessments, public inquiries, and regulatory consultations.
The Environmental Bureau of Investigation is dedicated to the protection of public resources through the application and enforcement of environmental laws: investigating and prosecuting environmental crime, assisting individuals and groups in their fight against polluters, developing public education tools to empower citizens to stop pollution, and publishing and publicizing information on pollution sources and sites. In recent years, EBI has focussed on maintaining its on-line Citizens Guide to Environmental Investigation and Prosecution, providing the public with invaluable advice on researching and documenting pollution in their communities, on determining whether the contaminants violate a law or regulation, on pressuring governments to take action, and on starting legal proceedings if governments refuse to act.
Margaret Laurence Fund for Peace and the Environment
In the last decade of her life Margaret Laurence turned her talent and passion to the cause of peace and the environment. Many of her efforts were directed through her work at EPRF, where she served with distinction as a director. To celebrate her accomplishments and carry on her work, our Foundation, with the support of her family, established the Margaret Laurence Fund. Through this fund, grants and scholarships are made to foster an understanding of peace and the environment upon which the fate of this fragile planet rests. Recipients of the grants and scholarships are limited to students, authors, researchers, and publishers, working with the Foundation in collaborative projects approved by the directors. |
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Elizabeth Brubaker is Environment Probe's executive director.
Dr. Vyacheslav G. Magmedov, a hydrogeologist, is working with Environment Probe to promote the use of constructed wetlands to treat contaminated water. Magmedov is a world-renowned authority on constructed wetlands. Since his groundbreaking 1986 thesis, "Water Quality Transformation in an Artificially Created Biogeocenosis," he has authored more than 40 articles, papers, and manuals devoted to the subject.
Gail Regan is president of Cara Holdings Ltd. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, a Certificate in Education from the Ontario College of Education, and from the University of Toronto: an MA in Educational Theory, a PhD in Educational Theory, and a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Finance.
Patricia Adams is an economist and the Executive Director of Probe International. Her books include In the Name of Progress: The Underside of Foreign Aid (Doubleday 1985) and Odious Debts: Loose Lending, Corruption and the Third World's Environmental Legacy (Earthscan 1991). Pat also edited the English language translation of Yangtze! Yangtze!, a critique by Chinese experts of the Three Gorges dam.
Max Allen is a producer for CBC Radio's IDEAS program. He is also the co-founder and curator of the Textile Museum of Canada.
Andrew Coyne is one of the leading voices and opinions on the current state of Canadian politics and issues. As the National Editor of Maclean’s, Mr. Coyne is on the front line of the major debates raging in Canadian society. 
Glenn Fox is an agricultural and natural resource economist. He received an undergraduate degree in agriculture in 1977 and a Master of Science in agricultural economics in 1979, both from the University of Guelph. He completed a PhD in agricultural economics and economics in 1985 at the University of Minnesota. He has taught at the University of Western Ontario and since 1985 has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Guelph. 
Ian Gray is president of St. Lawrence Starch Co. Ltd. which owns and operates St. Lawrence Grains. Mr. Gray holds a Master of Business Administration in Agricultural Economics from the University of Guelph.
Clifford Orwin has been a professor of political science at the University of Toronto for more than 25 years. 
Andrew Roman is a partner with Miller Thomson LLP. Mr. Roman's legal practice concentrates on problems and opportunities in relation to governments and government agencies, with a particular expertise in competition law and civil litigation.. He has established a reputation for efficiently and successfully resolving complex, difficult regulatory issues. He works with Canadian and international businesses and government clients.
Andrew Stark is a Professor of Strategic Management and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is currently researching and writing a book on one of the hot topics on the American scene: the increasingly blurred border between financial support by public funds and private funds for such core "entitlements" of citizenship as education, health-care, policing and municipal services
Annetta Turner has been with the Energy Probe Research Foundation since its inception. She is currently working as the Secretary Treasurer and Executive Director of The Margaret Laurence Fund.
Margaret Wente is one of Canada's leading columnists. As a writer for The Globe and Mail, she provokes heated debate with her views on health care, education, and social issues. She is this year's winner of the National Newspaper Award for column-writing.
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