Agenda

Ontario’s Municipal Access and Privacy legislation is divided into two main sections: Access and Privacy. In this session you will learn the main concepts of Ontario’s access schemes, including the exemptions, definitions and their importance. This session will greatly benefit newcomers to the legislation.

Gina Coish
Freedom of Information/Records Management Officer
The Simcoe County District School Board

Gina Coish is the Freedom of Information/Records Management Officer for the Simcoe County District School Board where she has been employed for over 18 years in a variety of positions. Gina has worked with MFIPPA for over 10 years and in her current role she is responsible for the establishment of a privacy program and a records management program. She is a graduate the University of Alberta’s Information Access and Protection of Privacy Certificate Program and has served as Chair of the Ontario Association of School Business Officials Freedom of Information/Records Management Committee. Gina is the current co-chair of the Privacy and Information Management (PIM) Taskforce, a grassroots group that came together to develop a toolkit of resources and guidelines for Ontario School Boards to aid in the development of a culture of information that protects privacy, manages risk and promotes public trust and confidence.

This presentation will be aimed at a beginner audience who are wishing to learn the basics about the process of obtaining access to records held by institutions covered under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). We will also make reference to the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA).

Topics to cover include:

• The purpose of the Act
• Right of Access
• Mandatory and Discretionary Exemptions
• Procedures to Access Information
• Role of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Office
• Role of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC)

Wendy Terhune
FOI Coordinator
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing

Wendy Terhune began her OPS career in 2002, working on various electronic service delivery projects at both the Ministry of Government Services and the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. She joined the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Revenue, where she worked as the FOI Program Analyst for almost 4 years. Wendy then worked at the Ministry of the Environment as an Assistant FOI Coordinator. Wendy recently joined the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as their FOI Coordinator.

Erin Coulter has worked in the field of information management in the OPS since 2004 when she joined the Archives of Ontario as an archivist. Erin became Assistant FOI Coordinator at the Ministry of the Environment in 2008.

Examine recent decisions of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario and the Courts to find out about new interpretations and significant clarifications or restatements of the law. Familiarity with the legislation is needed for this in-depth look at new developments.

John Higgins
Senior Adjudicator and Manager of Adjudication
Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario

John Higgins, Senior Adjudicator and Manager of Adjudication with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC), is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. After spending ten years as a lawyer in private practice, Mr. Higgins moved to the public sector, and has worked at the IPC since 1991. Mr. Higgins adjudicates access to information appeals under Ontario’s public sector Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and its municipal counterpart, the Municipal Freedom of Information of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. He also leads the team of adjudicators who deal with these appeals at the IPC. Prior to accepting this position, Mr. Higgins was Legal Counsel at the IPC, providing legal advice to adjudicators and representing the IPC in judicial review litigation.

Mr. Higgins is Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Administrative Law section. He is a frequent speaker on administrative law, as well as access and privacy issues.

Are you aware of the extent of your "digital trail"? This presentation will provide you with an overview of the extent of the electronic signature each person leaves behind them every day. It will touch on privacy issues, aspects of social engineering and how simple it is to locate the information for fraudulent and malicious purposes.

Francois van Heerden
Cluster Security Officer
MInistry of Community and Social Services

Francois van Heerden is a security professional with over 26 years of IT experience. He is an entertaining and accomplished speaker who believes security starts with awareness and education.

He has presented to audiences on timely topics such as Identity Theft, Social Engineering and the threats facing people on the Internet.

Privacy can mean many things to many people! Lawyers, philosophers, psychologists, historians, politicians, teachers, parents and clients all have different ideas about privacy and what it represents. Every social service organization deals with a vast array of personal and sensitive information of clients they serve on a daily basis. This is complicated by the degree of interaction with many external agencies as well as other departments within the social service organization. The management of personal information and protection of an individual’s privacy has never been more important. This presentation will provide an overview of the applicable privacy legislation and fundamental principles of privacy compliance within the social service environment. Attendees will leave this presentation with a clear understanding of when and how client information can be exchanged internally and externally as well as understand the purpose and format of acceptable consent.

C.M. (Chuck) Dowdall
Director Client Services
Social Housing Services Corporation

Municipal institutions handle personal information in many of the services they deliver. This session is oriented to FOIP coordinators and others who are new to the world of privacy protection and covers the basic principles and operation of MFIPPA's framework for handling personal information. Privacy requirements will be described with practical examples from the municipal perspective. You will hear some tips and suggestions for implementing privacy supportive practices in your institutions and have the opportunity to direct questions to an experienced municipal privacy practitioner.

Geoff Bell
FOI and Privacy Coordinator
Regional Municipality of Waterloo

Ontario’s Access and Privacy legislation should play an important role in determining how an institution operates on a daily basis. Learn how privacy is defined, what the legislation says about privacy and how this should be applied to your institutions day-to-day activities. This session will appeal to people who are new to the law and who will be applying privacy principles in their FIPPA organization.

Janet Dadufalza
Senior Policy Adviser
Ministry of Transportation

Janet Dadufalza is a graduate of University Of Toronto and is currently Senior Policy Advisor at the Ministry of Transportation's Freedom of Information and Privacy Office. She has been a member of the Ontario Public Service for 16 years and has 6 years of access and privacy experience working with the provincial legislation. This is her second year presenting at the Access and Privacy Workshop.

Nadia Bruno is currently a Policy Analyst in the Freedom of Information and Privacy Office at the Ministry of Transportation. Nadia has over 10 years experience working for the provincial government. Prior to joining the FOI and Privacy Office four years ago Nadia held various issues management positions at the Ministry of Transportation. She provides training and provides guidance and advice to ministry staff on access to information and privacy matters. Nadia also holds an Honours Bachelor Degree in Anthropology from the University of Toronto.

This session will focus on the interaction of public sector procurement with the FOIPPA obligations of institutions. The focus will be on the following aspects:

1. Custody/Control of commercial information
2. Threshold requirements for protecting information
3. Practical considerations for procurement development

Seminal as well as recent IPC decisions would be reviewed along with their application to various practical procurement situations.

Todd Milton
Counsel
Ministry of Transportation

Joe Pannella
Counsel
Ministry of Transportation

Police are continually used as a “resource” for information and/or records about individuals. A panel, made up of Police Freedom of Information specialists and a Records Manager, will discuss Section 32/42 MFIPPA/FIPPA and the discretionary release provisions of the Section(s). The discussion will cover the various procedures that most police agencies require in these situations and will include examples of instances where the Police will request that records be obtained by way of a summons or warrant.

Pat Seaton
Freedom of Information Analyst
Peel Regional Police
Chair, Freedom of Information Police Network

Shobana Rajan
Secretary – FOIPN, Analyst
Waterloo Regional Police


Kelli Eyres
Director – FOIPN, Coordinator
Thunder Bay Police

Paul Cormier
Records Manager
Waterloo Regional Police

The message of Privacy by Design (PbD), www.privacybydesign.ca – that privacy can be protected without sacrificing security, functionality or performance, if it is designed in from the outset – is a powerful one. A panel of experts will describe their own experiences with designing privacy into systems, as well as offering guidance to those who will undertake the task in the future. This session will provide system designers and privacy practitioners live examples of PbD in the context of CCTV and law enforcement, Web 2.0 and open government, and The Tor Project, a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.

Panel Moderator: Michelle Chibba
Director of Policy
Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario

Michelle has over two decades of professional experience, most of it in the Ontario Public Service (OPS), where she managed several strategic policy projects both at Management Board and Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Early in her career, she worked in the private sector as well as for a non-governmental policy research organization in the U.S. One of her major accomplishments within the OPS was as Quality Manager for the Health Economic Development Unit, where she was instrumental in implementing a quality management system that was successfully registered to ISO 9001 standards. For this, she received the Amethyst Award for Outstanding Achievement by Ontario Public Servants. She is also a recipient of an Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care ACE Award for Stakeholder/Partner Relations. Ms. Chibba received her master’s degree from Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.), with a focus on ethics and international business.

Fred Carter has a variety of demanding roles as Senior Policy and Technology Advisor. His primary responsibilities involve providing research, information, and strategic advisory services to the IPC Commissioners, management and staff on a wide range of technology and privacy policy issues. His recent work includes publications on Identity Theft, Identity Management, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), and Biometric Encryption.

Fred worked for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in the Research and Policy Division in a similar capacity, where he dealt with technology-related privacy compliance and public policy issues, including biometrics, authentication methods, Internet privacy and e-Government issues.

Mark Barkley has been a member of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) for 24 years, with experience in uniform patrol, specialized investigative units, and technological research and planning. Mark has worked on several committees to research and recommend legislation and governance models, as well as to review the use of technology in support of policing operations. Since 2005, Mark has been the officer in charge of communications technology support at the TPS 9-1-1 centre. In 2006, Mark was tasked with researching the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) as an additional policing tool. Through this research and consultation with the IPC, Mark developed operational and governance models for the use of CCTV in public spaces by the TPS. This blending of privacy consideration with operational design and governance created a CCTV program that stands as an example of the positive-sum paradigm.

Andrew Lewman is executive director of The Tor Project, a non-profit organization providing research and free software that protects your online privacy and anonymity. Andrew manages The Tor Project's business operations, support, and advocacy roles while also serving on its board of directors. He is an ethologist by training and his experience spans a variety of business fields. In addition to conducting research on animal communication behavior, Andrew has worked for multi-national companies in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. He is a strong believer of individual rights, privacy, anonymity, and solving real-world problems - sometimes even with technology.

Are you the access/privacy go-to person in your institution? If so, this session is for you ..cause you've got some training to do! Learn how to identify what your colleagues need to know and how to select and deliver the right content in the best way possible. Fun and training can go together...come and find out how.

Lynne Gottschling
Access and Privacy Coordinator
Ministry of Government Services

Your chance to get some insightful opinions on some your most challenging questions.

John Wunderlich
Principal
John Wunderlich and Associates

John Wunderlich is a former Senior Policy and Information Technology Advisor for the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Mr. Wunderlich’s role with the Office of the IPC involved serving as a research, information, and advisory resource to the Commissioner and her staff on a wide range of technology and privacy policy issues. Prior to joining the IPC, John worked in the private sector in a variety of technology and management roles. John is also a Certified Information System Auditor (CISA) and has designed and completed privacy audits and assessments in a number of companies. John has spoken about privacy to private and public sector audiences in the U.S. and Canada on privacy and information management. He has written about privacy or been interviewed on the subject by both newspapers and industry journals. John is a graduate of the University of Manitoba, with a B.A. in History. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Ottawa in History, and has an MBA from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal.

Fazila Nurani was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2001, and is the President and Founder of PrivaTech Consulting (www.privatech.ca). PrivaTech specializes in advising organizations on implementing privacy and information security best practices, and complying with Canadian privacy laws. Fazila’s privacy consulting, legal and training services have benefited those operating in a variety of industries to better manage privacy and information security risks, including marketing firms, the insurance and health sectors, debt collectors, technology companies, retailers, the staffing industry and financial service providers. Fazila has also worked extensively with the public sector, providing direction on the implementation of government initiatives with privacy implications.

A panel of experts will debate the relationship and expectations between schools and police services. What legal rights do both have and do they clash? What can students and schools expect from this relationship? What can the police expect? A select series of scenarios will be posed and our panel will express their own views / knowledge on each, for example, what rights do the police have to open and inspect students’ lockers and knapsacks? The ultimate goal is to educate relative to the protection of privacy vs. upholding the law.

Panel Moderator: Nancy Massie
Information Asset Services
York Region District School board

Lorraine Wilson
Constable
Peel Regional Police
Internet Child Exploitation Unit

David Seal
Detective
Peel Regional Police
Youth Crime Unit

Martha Mackinnon
Lawyer and Executive Director
Justice for Children and Youth

Sheila Hetherington
Vice Principal
Safe Schools

Maria Bunn
Secondary School Student and Student Trustee
York Region District School Board

The increasing off-site handling and storage of electronic data collected by municipalities has raised new issues of data security and privacy. This is a critical concern especially when the data storage facility lies in a different jurisdiction! This important session will discuss the implications of housing municipal data in other jurisdictions, including how legislation in those jurisdictions might affect your data and your privacy obligations!

Murray Rosenthal
Senior Policy Analyst
City of Toronto

Murray Rosenthal, CISA, is a well-regarded information security practitioner with 20 years of experience in the information security profession. He is known for his thought leadership in the areas of information security strategic planning and information security management systems, as well as state modeling and breach vector identification across the domain architectures of business, information, application, technology, security and privacy. Murray is also responsible for leading-edge thinking on security-related aspects of the Zachman Framework, described by John Zachman as “especially innovative”.

Lou has a double career, the first as Associate Counsel with the national law firm of Miller Thomson LLP and the second, as the Board Chair and CEO of the GTMA - Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance. Lou authors a series of technology law volumes on Computer and Information Technology and occasionally lectures at Waterloo, Ryerson, and at UOIT. He is a board member of KINSA (Kids Internet Safety Association) and on the Executive Committee the Public Sector Lawyers Section of the Ontario Bar Association. Lou is a graduate of the University of Toronto (BA) and of the Osgoode Hall School of Law of York University (LLB).

Better management of information is a key enabler of the Ontario government’s modernization agenda to improve the quality and sustainability of public services. The Government of Ontario is leading many changes in information management policies and practices, and implementing new technologies to achieve better value from its information holdings, improve internal and external services and to ensure that the province's knowledge trust is protected now and for future generations.

Practitioners in the field of Access to Information and Privacy will continue to play important and potentially new roles as we transition to a primarily electronic environment for records and document management. This presentation will focus on the changes in information management practices that are underway in the OPS and how those changes may affect the role and function of Freedom of Information and Privacy professionals.

Guy Herriges
Manager, Access, Discovery and Business Recordkeeping
Office of the Chief Information and Privacy Officer

Guy Herriges is Manager of Access, Discovery and Business Recordkeeping with the Office of the Chief Information and Privacy Officer, Ministry of Government Services. Currently, he is focused on the development of an information management strategy for the Government of Ontario. Prior to his current assignment, Guy was on secondment to the City of Toronto leading the renewal of the Corporate Access and Privacy program there. Guy has over 17 years of experience in information access and privacy as a policy advisor and as Manager of Access and Privacy at the former Management Board Secretariat. In those positions Guy was also responsible for the development and implementation of Ontario’s Lobbyists Registration Act. Prior to joining the Ontario government in 1987, Guy was the Assistant Director of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. Guy has degrees in philosophy and law from the University of Saskatchewan.

Request processing is a significant administrative task that requires an understanding of legislation, the municipality’s bylaws, time restrictions, records management, organizational structure and more. This session provides an overview of how to process requests with a focus on the municipal sector. Join a panel of key municipal staff as they provide practical advice for the busy administrator, discuss best practices, various types of requests, how to handle contentious, frivolous and vexatious requests, and more! Attend this valuable session to get answers to your questions about how to process MFIPPA requests!

Rob Candy
Manager Training and Compliance - Corporate Access and Privacy
Corporate Access and Privacy Office
City of Toronto

Rob Candy is the Manager Training and Compliance - Corporate Access and Privacy for the City of Toronto's Corporate Access and Privacy Office. His training workshops for the City of Toronto and other municipal and provincial governments and agencies are consistently rated very high.

This session is aimed at helping understand the basics of how technology works for the purpose of assessing privacy. While technology can be – arguably – value neutral it has a critical impact on privacy rights. This training is ideally suited to those beginning to learn about technology systems, and will provide the necessary background information to undertake privacy analysis. Topics to be covered include an overview of the different types of technology and technology services, and the information security techniques used to protect personal information, and processes to manage both.

Tracy Ann Kosa
PIA Specialist, PIA Centre of Excellence
Office of the Chief Information and Privacy Officer
Ministry of Government Services

Tracy Ann Kosa is currently a specialist with Government of Ontario Privacy Impact Assessment Centre of Excellence. She has 10 years of privacy experience across Canada working with federal and provincial legislation in the public and private sectors. As faculty at international programs on privacy, she continues to work on creating quantitative metrics for expressing privacy preferences in trust environments using utility models, as well as the creation of privacy design requirements for IT systems. Ms. Kosa holds two Masters, one with a focus on privacy ethics from York University, the other in political leadership from the University of Manitoba.

Join us for an in-depth, and plain language review of the policy reasons underlying the access to information exemptions of FIPPA and MFIPPA.

The review will also include a discussion of the 1980 Law Reform Commission Report on Freedom of Information (the Williams Commission Report) --the report that informed the legislative development of FIPPA and MFIPPA, together with a review of key portions of legislative committee debates during the development of FIPPA.

This session is designed to give participants a better understanding of why the exemptions of FIPPA and MFIPPA exist, and how the policy reasons underlying exemptions should be considered in access to information decision-making.

Don Fawcett
Senior Counsel
Ministry of Government Services

Don Fawcett is a graduate of Queen's University Law School and is currently Senior Counsel in the Legal Services Branch of the Ministry of Government Services. Don provides legal support to the Office of the Corporate Chief Information and Privacy Officer, MGS, and provides corporate legal advice on access to information and privacy law matters to Ontario government ministries and agencies.

You're working in the access and privacy field and considering your next move. Are you searching for ideas and opportunities that could take your career to the next level? This interactive session will describe some of the roles available to people with access and privacy experience, discuss the skills you've acquired along the way, and suggest some areas to develop in order to break into related fields and professions. We will provide you with our first-hand experience and career paths, and challenge you to share your own experiences with others in the session.

Chairperson: Howard Jones
Coordinator, FOI and Privacy
Cabinet Office

Caroline Crnekovic
Senior Policy Adviser
Office of the Corporate Chief Information and Privacy Officer
Ministry of Government Services

Caroline Crnekovic is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Access and Privacy Office, Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. Caroline has worked extensively with projects on developing and reviewing Privacy Impact Assessments. Caroline is a former Chair of the OPS Privacy Working Group and the Information Architecture Domain Working Group. Caroline has held positions human resources, IT procurement, and Treasury Board Office. Caroline holds a Master of Industrial Relations degree from Queen's University.

Roxana Baciu is the Freedom of Information Coordinator at the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. Prior to that she worked as an Issues Coordinator with the Ministry of Labour.

Previously she was the FOI Program Advisor at Cabinet Office's FOI and Issues Unit. Roxana began her government career as a Senior Media Analyst with Cabinet Office.

Eric Lawton currently serves voluntarily as the Director of Professional Certification for the non-profit Canadian Professional Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators (CAPAPA). His primary focus in CAPAPA is to establish certification and networking resources for access and privacy professionals across Canada. He is also leading CAPAPA's efforts to develop accreditation standards for educational institutions training programs and liaises with other professional bodies in related professions.

Eric's full-time job is Manager of Corporate Access and Privacy, City Clerk's Office, City of Toronto. Eric's unit conducts Privacy Impact Assessments and provides support and advice to City staff. He also does training on Privacy Impact Assessments and develops policy. Eric joined the City in September 2006.

For 16 years prior to that, Eric worked in the Government of Ontario in various roles, most recently as a senior policy advisor in the Ministry of Government Services's Corporate Access and Privacy Office.

Access and privacy legislation, such as M/FIPPA are implemented and institutional operations in a broader legislative and regulatory context, interacting with many factors, including other legislation and processes, subpoenas, orders, consents, and emergency disclosure obligations.

This session will sort through some of these complexities, including attendees questions on the topic.

Rafael Eskenazi
Director, Access and Privacy Office
University of Toronto

This session will focus on practical methods and examples of introducing privacy into a municipal institution, ie. privacy training, privacy breach and complaint investigation, compliance reviews and audits, and privacy consultations.

Rob Candy
Manager Training and Compliance - Corporate Access and Privacy
Corporate Access and Privacy Office
City of Toronto

Rob Candy is the Manager Training and Compliance - Corporate Access and Privacy for the City of Toronto's Corporate Access and Privacy Office. His training workshops for the City of Toronto and other municipal and provincial governments and agencies are consistently rated very high.

Building public trust requires effective stewardship, ensuring that government organizations carry out their work according to high standards of accountability, transparency, integrity, prudence and fairness. Current privacy and FOI policies are a perfect example of this relationship.

At any level of government, the public's perception of the ethics behind government decision-making is critical to the reputation of the government organization and to the level of public trust and engagement. This perception shapes the public's opinion about government officials' personal integrity, honesty and ultimately, the government's performance. It can overshadow all other values of a government organization, including competence, experience and expertise.

Across Ontario, there has been a growing trend to act on the powers conferred by the /Municipal Act/, 2001 and create accountability officers to provide oversight and ensure high standards of integrity, accountability and prudence in government decision-making. Come here how one Ontario municipality is tackling this thorny issue on the eve of another municipal election.

Suzanne Craig
Integrity Commissioner
City of Vaughan

ACCESS AND PRIVACY MATURITY FRAMEWORK A work planning tool for Access to information and Privacy Managers

Access and privacy managers constantly get this question: "how can we improve our compliance?" There are lots of things an organization can do, but which ones should be done first, second, etc.? C-level executives also want to know, "Is there an end in sight?" and "When will the resources I've given you finally be 'enough'?"

Capability Maturity Models (CMMs) have been used in many industries to analyze strengths and weaknesses in business processes. This workshop will introduce you to the new concept of an Access and Privacy Capability Maturity Model (AP-CMM) and how to apply the model in an Access and Privacy setting to achieve the maximum impact. You can also use your self-assessed CMM rating to demonstrate to senior management why you need more resources now and why you'll need more in the future!

Join Eric Lawton, Manager, Corporate Access and Privacy with the City of Toronto as he:

-outlines the 5 standard levels of a CMM

-describes the reasons for CMM mapping, including assessing organizational practices, goals and process improvements.

-outlines a preliminary Access and Privacy CMM

-describes the process characteristics in each level of maturity in the initial AP-CMM, and finally

-leads you through the example of applying the AP-CMM in the City of Toronto

Eric Lawton
Manager Information, Privacy and Technology Corporate Access and Privacy Office
City of Toronto

Eric Lawton currently serves voluntarily as the Director of Professional Certification for the non-profit Canadian Professional Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators (CAPAPA). His primary focus in CAPAPA is to establish certification and networking resources for access and privacy professionals across Canada. He is also leading CAPAPA's efforts to develop accreditation standards for educational institutions training programs and liaises with other professional bodies in related professions.

Eric's full-time job is Manager of Corporate Access and Privacy, City Clerk's Office, City of Toronto. Eric's unit conducts Privacy Impact Assessments and provides support and advice to City staff. He also does training on Privacy Impact Assessments and develops policy. Eric joined the City in September 2006.

For 16 years prior to that, Eric worked in the Government of Ontario in various roles, most recently as a senior policy advisor in the Ministry of Government Services's Corporate Access and Privacy Office.

The Ministry of the Environment’s Information Management and Access Branch is reinventing its access strategy to meet public information needs and improve scientific and enforcement staff’s access to Ministry information. Hear how this multi-stage, multi-faceted approach is paying off for the Ministry, FOI requesters and stakeholder groups.

Key Points:

• Improving business processes and technology to facilitate FOI request management
• Using digitization to unlock public access to MOE’s historic scientific and technical data
• Developing and employing best practices to deliver information about the environmental history of properties

Jim Lewis
Director
Information Management and Access Branch
Ministry of Environment

Donna Currie
FOI Coordinator, Special Projects Adviser
Ministry of the Environment

Michael Maddock
Project Lead
Modernizing Property Information
Ministry of the Environment

Michael Maddock joined the Information Management and Access Branch (IMAB) at the Ministry of Environment (MOE) in February 2008 as the Project Lead for Modernizing Property Information.

Michael began his Public Service career in 1995 with the federal government as an environmental officer with Public Works and Government Services Canada and subsequently with Environment Canada. Michael joined the MOE in 2001 as a Learning and Development Consultant in the Human Resources Branch. Since then Michael has worked in successively demanding roles as a Team Lead, HR manager, and Deputy Minister's Executive Assistant prior to joining IMAB.

Michael has an Honours Degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo.