Alice de Wolff
Alice de Wolff was a national board member of the Council of Canadians in the late 2010s, and was executive coordinator of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in the late 1980s and early 90s.
Blair Redlin
Blair Redlin has worked on trade issues for over 30 years, both in the Canadian labour movement and the BC provincial government. Blair began working as a researcher for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in the late 1980s. Flowing from that, he became co-chair of the Vancouver Coalition Against Free Trade at the time of the first Canada/U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA). In 1993, Blair was National Campaigns Coordinator in the National President’s office of CUPE, which led him to become involved with the Action Canada Network and its efforts to challenge the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 1994, he joined the B.C. public service as an Assistant Deputy Minister and eventually (acting) Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Employment and Investment which, amongst other things, had lead responsibility for trade issues. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, interprovincial trade agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO) were all priorities at that time. Blair returned to CUPE staff in 2003 and subsequently became co-chair of the national Trade Justice Network which was focused on the Canada/E.U. trade agreement (CETA) and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Dennis Howlett
For over 30 years, Dennis Howlett worked for a number of ecumenical social justice coalitions including the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice, Ten Days for Global Justice and KAIROS where he led successful campaigns against the Canada US Free Trade Agreement, and for cancellation of Third World debt, fair trade certification of coffee and other products, and ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. He has gone onto be the National Coordinator of Make Poverty History Canada, the Executive Director of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, and the Executive Director of Canadians for Tax Fairness. He is currently serving as the Treasurer of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice.
Duncan Cameron was a political science faculty member at the University of Ottawa (1975-2004),
president of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (1987-1999), and editor of The Canadian Forum
(1988-1998). He was also involved with of the Pro-Canada Network and published extensively on free
trade, including books such as The Other Macdonald Report (with Daniel Drache)(1985), The Free Trade
Papers (1986) and The Free Trade Deal (1988).
Jim Sinclair worked on free trade issues during his 18 years with the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union (UFAWU), eventually becoming union vice-president. He served as associate editor of The Fisherman newspaper that reported on the impacts of free trade on BC’s fishing industry. And he organized protests within the BC fishing industry to challenge free trade as part of the Action Canada Network. In 1992 he edited and co-authored Crossing the Line: Canada and Free Trade with Mexico.
Johanna den Hertog was the New Democratic Party candidate for the Vancouver Centre riding during the 1984 and 1988 federal election campaigns. During the 1988 federal election, she was also the National President of the NDP, participating in national and provincially televised debates as the NDP representative campaigning against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement.
Isabella Bakker is a Canadian political scientist, currently a Distinguished Research Professor and York Research Chair at York University. A leading authority in the fields of political economy, public finance, gender and development, her work was recognized when she was named a Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2004. During the struggle against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, she was a member of the Employment Committee of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Her feminist ACTION article “Free Trade: What’s at Risk?” can be found in our archive.
Maude Barlow is a co-founder and Honorary Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, one of Canada’s leading independent advocacy groups. She is an outspoken advocate and author on issues including democratic and social rights, trade sovereignty, and environmental justice. Barlow has served as a Senior Advisor on Water to the United Nations. She also serves on the World Future Council and on the board of Food and Water Watch.
James Turk is currently Director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University. He also has been Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Executive Assistant to the National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Director of Education for the Ontario Federation of Labour, and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. During the free trade struggle, he was Research Director for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of Canada.
Rick Salutin has been a freelance writer in Canada for over 40 years. During the 1980s, Rick Salutin became involved in opposing free trade as a union organizer involved with the Canadian Conference of Unions (CCU) and head of the Guild of Canadian Playwrights. He was an early member of the Coalition Against Free Trade, the first coalition to form against free trade. He organized anti-free trade cultural events at Massey Hall in Toronto and wrote the “What’s the Big Deal” cartoon booklet (with cartoonist Terry Mosher), which was distributed in daily newspapers across Canada leading up to the 1988 federal election. In 1989 he published Waiting for Democracy: A Citizen’s Journal, documenting the “free trade” federal election of 1988. Since the 1980s, he has been a columnist reporter for both the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star.