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Backgrounder

June 21, 2006

MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON TRANSBOUNDARY SCIENCE

David Balsillie, MSc., Ph.D. (Chair)
Dr. Balsillie is an Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto. As a former Assistant Deputy Minister at both the Ontario Ministries of the Environment and Natural Resources, he brings a wealth of public sector experience to the committee, including extensive work on the long-range transport of air pollution and acid precipitation files. Mr. Balsillie is currently on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Forestry Association and is the Forest Policy Examiner for the Ontario Professional Foresters Association.

David Besner, Ph.D., P.Eng.
A former Assistant Deputy Minister with New Brunswick’s Department of Environment and Local Government, Dr. Besner is currently the president of the environmental management firm D. Besner and Associates Inc. A member of the Premier of New Brunswick’s Round Table on Environment and Economy, Mr. Besner is a former member of the International Joint Commission’s Air Quality Advisory Board and has authored several papers on the effects of air quality on public health.

Jeremy M. Hales, Ph.D.
Dr. Hales is the principal of Envair, an unincorporated association dedicated to carrying out contract research and offering consulting services in the environmental and earth sciences. Based in the state of Washington, his company provides technical consulting in air quality and atmospheric sciences, including large, combined monitoring, modeling, and data analysis programs, and pollutant-removal processes for U.S. federal and state agencies, federal laboratories, and the private sector.

Geoffrey Westcott Harris, Ph.D.
Dr. Harris is the Guy Warwick Rogers Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry and Professor of Chemistry at York University’s Chemistry Department. As the Director of the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry, his areas of expertise include tropospheric ozone and the chemistry of the background atmosphere in connection with climate change processes.

Brian Magee, Ph.D.
Dr. Magee is currently the Vice President and Principal Toxicologist at AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc., an environmental risk assessment firm located in Westford, Massachusetts. A former toxicological chemist with the US EPA, he has written and evaluated environmental laws and regulations and has provided expert testimony regarding the risks posed by numerous toxic substances, including coal-fired power plants.

L. David Pengelly, M.Sc., Ph.D., P.Eng.
Dr. Pengelly is currently Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, a member of the McMaster Institute of Environment and Health, and Professor Emeritus, Department of Engineering Physics at McMaster University in Hamilton. In addition, he is Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. He has worked in the field of air pollution research for over 40 years as an engineer, physiologist and most recently using the tools of epidemiology and has served as chair or member on committees of non-governmental organizations and government agencies relating to issues of environment and health, including the Advisory Committee on Environmental Standards in Ontario.

Lesbia F. Smith, MD
Dr. Smith is currently an Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit, and Associate of the Centre for Environment at the University of Toronto, as well as Clinical Research Associate of the Institute of Environment and Health, McMaster University. She has vast Ontario government experience, in particular with the Ministry of Health where she was an acknowledged leader in quantifying the relationship between human health and the environment.

Douw Steyn, Ph.D.
Dr. Steyn is the Associate Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies, Department of Earth and Ocean Science and Geography at the University of British Columbia. He has an extensive background in the use of integrated atmospheric pollution transportation and transformation models as tools for the development of pollution abatement policy.

Peter Victor, Ph.D.
Dr. Victor is Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, and from1996 to 2001 was Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies. This followed several years as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Sciences and Standards Division in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. He was the first economist to apply the physical law of the conservation of matter to the empirical analysis of a national economy and was one of the founders of the emerging discipline of ecological economics.

James W.S. Young, Ph.D.
Dr. Young is currently president of Jim Young Atmospheric Services Inc., and he is still affiliated with the global environmental firm SENES Consultants Ltd., where he worked on numerous international air quality projects for 15 years. He also served as Director of Air Quality, Research at the Atmospheric Environment Service of Environment Canada for over 12 years and was Chief of the Air Quality Section for the Province of New Brunswick. Dr. Young’s global experience spans issues from climate change and meteorology to acid rain and pollution abatement at all scales, local to global. He also served as the Canadian Co-chair of the Air Quality Advisory Board, International Joint Commission from 1985-1996 and is a past president of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.

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Contacts:
Anne O’Hagan Minister’s Office (416) 325-5809	John Steele Ministry of the Environment (416) 314-6666