Canada's Joan of Arc

Farley Mowat refers to her as Canada's Joan of Arc. A good analogy! She is one feisty individual and a gallant crusader against those who would despoil our planet.

Born in the USA some 40 plus years ago. She comes by her activism naturally. Her mother was steadfast in her efforts -- a crusader against nuclear warhead testing when Elizabeth was just an infant. Whether Elizabeth became an activist because of inherited genes or by association with Mom is open to debate.

On the day that the university students were shot at Kent State her father made the decision to move to Canada. He was born in Britain and did not have the patriotic zeal of the native Americans. The Vietnam war made him particularly unhappy with the status quo. He gave up his job as a vice-president of a major insurance company and took the family to New Brunswick.

Along with the rest of the family, she worked tirelessly to make a living with the new family venture -- a restaurant. She never lost interest in environmental issues and knew what she must do. She was determined to go to university to become an environmental lawyer, but she was delayed in her studies with her involvement in environmental concerns.

Her first major venture into the fray started when the Swedish-owned Nova Scotia Forest Industry wanted to spray a highly toxic pesticide against the spruce bud-worm. (Actually they wanted the government to absorb the cost of the chemicals and their application.) She was only about 20 years old at the time -- slightly older than Joan of Arc. Elizabeth was familiar with the chemical -- having read Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. The association of the chemical to infantile deaths from Reye's Syndrome had been established and she was determined to stop the spraying.

The company';s plan was delayed with the exhaustive campaign that she championed. The battle raged for six years. The battle had to be fought over and over again, but she never wavered.

All of the forest product companies are foreign owned in Nova Scotia - Sweden, Britain and the US. When the pesticide battle was over, they wanted to spray the infamous agent orange as a herbicide to kill off all of the unwanted species of trees. Some of those darned hardwood trees were just taking up valuable space in the forest. They didn't want to pay for this application either -- let the taxpayer pay.

Elizabeth's wrote a book on the exhaustive campaign. Budworm Battles was published in 1982.

Elizabeth eventually got her law degree. She graduated from Dalhousie Law School and is a member of the Bar in both Ontario and Nova Scotia.

She was engaged as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Federal Environmental Minister back in 1986. In this capacity she has been instrumental in the creation of new legislation and pollution control measures.

She is active in radio and TV broadcasting.

She has written and co-authored numerous books.

She was on the board of directors of several environmental groups including Friends of the Earth, Earth Day, and Canadian Environmental Network.

She was a founding member of the Canadian Environmental Defense Fund and Women for a Healthy Planet.

Elizabeth also established Cultural Survival (Canada), where she served as Executive Director on a volunteer basis for four years.

She is also actively representing indigenous people of the Amazon and Malaysia, native Canadians, consumers, poverty and environmental groups for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

Elizabeth is the recipient of several awards including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Sierra Club in 1989, the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, and the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990. Most recently, in 1996, she was presented with the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education.

Currently, Elizabeth May is Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a member of the board of directors of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and vice-chair of the National Round Table for the Environment and Economy.

She is also the mother of a teenage daughter -- Victoria. (How she found the time for this is a mystery.)

I hope that those interested in environmental justice will take time to read one or two of Ms. May's books.

Have a nice day.