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David R. Boyd

 

  • 2005 Trudeau Scholar

    david.boyd@trudeaufoundation.net

    Profile

    Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Managament, Simon Fraser University


    "While traveling along the road of life, one encounters potholes, detours, and dead ends but also valuable lessons, new friends, moments of insight, and unexpected delights (especially when traveling by bicycle). Being a Trudeau Scholar has been an amazing part of this journey, and enabled many lessons, friendships, insights, and delights. This is thanks largely to the people who form the loose-knit but remarkably collegial Trudeau community-scholars, mentors, fellows, directors, employees, and alumni of all kinds. Being a Trudeau Scholar gave me the financial freedom and the intellectual space to do what I love doing-combining research and advocacy in an effort to strengthen public policies to protect people's health from environmental hazards.

    To return to one's studies later in life, as I have done, is a great luxury. It offers a reflective retreat from the frenetic pace of modern life. The Trudeau scholarship provides a constant reminder that this good fortune is accompanied by a set of responsibilities, both ethical and intellectual. In my case, it is not sufficient to labour away in an ivory tower producing sophisticated journal articles with few readers. Instead, honouring the ideals of the Trudeau Foundation requires going the extra distance and doing everything within one's capacity to turn words on paper into actions in the real world-actions that pursue social, environmental, and economic justice."

    Trudeau Foundation Themes

    Human Rights and Social Justice »
    Responsible Citizenship »
    Humans and their Natural Environment »

  • Biography

    David R. Boyd is one of Canada's leading environmental lawyers. He is a Trudeau Scholar and an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University. Boyd has advised the governments of both Canada and Sweden on environmental issues and is the co-chair of Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team along with Mayor Gregor Robertson.

    Boyd's current research focuses on the effects of enshrining the constitutional right to live in a healthy environment, a right now recognized in at least 100 nations. His most recent book is Dodging the Toxic Bullet: How to Protect Yourself from Everyday Environmental Health Hazards. His previous book was a best-seller co-authored with David Suzuki titled David Suzuki's Green Guide which shares ideas about how to find fresher, tastier, healthier food, create an eco-friendly home, make sustainable transportation choices, reduce consumption, and be a green citizen.

    Boyd also wrote Prescription for a Healthy Canada: Towards a National Environmental Health Strategy, Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada and the award-winning Unnatural Law: Rethinking Canadian Environmental Law and Policy. His essays appear regularly in The Globe and Mail and other Canadian newspapers.
     
    David is the former Executive Director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (now Ecojustice), Canada's leading public interest environmental law organization. He lives on Pender Island in British Columbia with his wife Margot Venton and their daughter Meredith.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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