Who We Are
Our vision is that the Greater Victoria Region achieves social and ecological sustainability, with a high quality of life and a long life in good health for all its citizens, while reducing its ecological footprint to be equivalent to one planet’s worth of biocapacity.
Board Members
Meet our board members. It’s thanks to them that Conversations for a Planet Region is able to do the good work that it does.
Trevor Hancock - President
Trevor Hancock was the first leader of the Green Party of Canada and a family physician. Under his leadership, the party ran 60 candidates in the 1984 federal election. He is a public health physician, and currently serves as a professor and senior scholar at the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria. He obtained his degree in medicine at the University of London. He also consults with the World Health Organization. Together with Dr. Leonard Duhl, he created the Healthy Cities project that looks at environmental aspects of sustainable urban development as a determinant of health. In 2005, Hancock was also instrumental in initiating BC Healthy Communities – a provincial initiative focused on building capacity for healthy municipal governance.
Allen McLash - Secretary and Treasurer
After teaching high school chemistry and mathematics for 6 years, he practised law in Saskatchewan and BC. With 30 years in practice, during which he specialized in the law of taxation, he retired from his position in the Ministry of Attorney General for BC.
Allen has served on a Citizens Advisory Board for the Salvation Army and the board of directors of a food bank and is a past vice-president of the Canadian Club of Victoria.
Fred Haynes - Vice-President
With careers in the political, private, education and non-profit sectors Fred is the former Mayor of the District of Saanich and a Director of the Capital Regional District. He completed his doctoral studies as a Commonwealth Scholar at the Banting & Best Dept of Medical Research. Teaching biological sciences in schools and universities his understanding of the imperatives for homeostasis in viable economic and ecological systems leads him to champion the One Planet model. In the private sector Fred founded Contact Canada® in 1990 to provide informational tools for governments, non-profits and corporations working on environmental resources, renewable energy, food supplies and human health. His volunteer work on non-profit boards has focused on watersheds, healthy communities, and mental wellness.