Current Board of Directors

Janet Dean

Janet Dean is the ED of the NWT Agri-food Association, working to build a sector that is sustainable and demonstrates great environmental stewardship while acknowledging and responding to the reality that agriculture in the NWT has a solely colonial history and has both a role in, and a responsibility for, food security and sovereignty.

Janet has a unique combination of education and experience in business and psychology and food production and retailing. Social activism runs in her veins and underscores her commitment to FSC.

Vanessa Girard-Tremblay

Vanessa is currently co-director at Carrefour Alimentaire Centre-Sud in Montreal where, alongside her passionate team, she works to increase accessibility to fresh, healthy and local food for all through several innovative programs. She has a degree in international relations and international law, as well as  a certificate in feminist studies, but currently, all of her energy is focused on the right to food. From facilitation of cooking workshops, the establishment of a food bank based on choice and the dignity of its members, to the development of a pay-what-you-can fruit and vegetable market, Vanessa’s experience on the ground has allowed her to understand the power of food and the links it can create. Today, she is particularly interested in building inclusive and horizontal work spaces where everyone can thrive while also respecting their limits.

Bianca Laloche

Bianca is originally from the Mauricie Bois Franc region, child of Atikamekw parents, she grew up in the community of Wemotaci. At the age of 12, her parents moved to the town of LaTuque. They returned to the community when she was 14. She moved to Montreal when she was 17 to pursue her studies. She came back to her community 3 times, because finding a job was easier among her people. 

At the age of 21, she had the joy of having a child. She worked as an income security agent, and in 2006 she became a quadriplegic. She decided to stay in Montreal and since 2011 she has been volunteering to help people in need (food, support, etc.). 

This volunteer work has allowed her to accept her difficulties with more ease. The people around us are sometimes in perfect health but are going through important difficulties. It is with this heart that she volunteered to be part of the board of directors of the FSC.

Jingyi (Celia) Luo 

Trained as a dietitian, Celia is a relatively new settler learning to be a better guest on this land. Celia's involvement with food started with student hunger awareness on campus in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mi'kmaki. Along the way, she spent time in Mi'kmaki, Treaty 7, and now Treaty 6 territory, and she worked with students, newcomers & refugees, and indigenous people in community health centres, community gardens, urban agriculture projects, and cooperatives; and she advocated for cultural food security through local food policy and food literacy programming.Her professional interests in food justice draw her to work with equity-seeking groups in her career. Wherever she works, she likes to walk alongside the community she served on a food security journey, focusing on improving healthy food access, building local food infrastructure, supporting healthy food skills education, and advocacy. She believes food can be a provocation for change, to create connections and togetherness rather than divisions. She is committed to supporting food justice principles. And she is interested in using her knowledge of food science and health; to create spaces and activities which promote a local food landscape that reduces both physical food miles and social distance.

Larry McDermott 

A member of Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, Larry McDermott served as an Ontario municipal politician for 28 years including as the first national rural chair of FCM.

He is currently Executive Director of Plenty Canada, a non-profit organization devoted to environmental protection and healthy communities, and Co-chair of the Canadian Environmental Network Biodiversity Caucus. He also serves as a commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Nicola Moore 

Nicola Moore’s mission is to improve the quality of life through social education. She is always looking for ways to connect with others and be involved in her community. Her journey into food advocacy ignited a passion she was determined to share with the world. She has spoken to many groups about food insecurity with a focus on mental health and wellness. Nicola has participated in writing letters to government officials, spoken many times on television networks, and has been mentioned in national newspapers, all with the same goal in mind; Ms. Moore advocates for changes that would reduce poverty and create a more equitable society.

Raygan Solotki

Ray has always had a passion for food security, as she grew up in one of the "1 in 8" food insecure households in Canada, in the Cowichan Valley of British Columbia. She spent summers fishing and gardening; falls were spent canning and hunting; and spring planning how to grow/harvest and hunt for more so that the food lasted just a bit longer. (Well, she helped...) She used those skills and gained new ones in the Western Arctic, where she worked with the 8 Beaufort Delta, NWT communities to develop greenhouse programs that incorporated food security and food sovereignty ideas. She developed a program to encourage employment in those greenhouses instead of the idea of volunteering - which, although she sees as having its place, also sees that value should be placed on the work done by people locally to increase the food supply. 

As a settler Canadian, she is learning to unlearn the negative teachings of her childhood through listening, learning, and encouraging voices quieter than her own to be elevated. As the Executive Director of Green Iglu, she is working hard to decolonize the workplace and encourage difficult conversations regarding food, education, and employment in remote communities that are often overlooked, underfunded, and ignored. Her passion is food; she started a food share program while living in Japan and is known as the Crazy Arctic Chicken Lady by many due to having had a small chicken farm in her garage, which survived two winters that saw -56C. She is often more comfortable with animals than humans, but get her talking about growing mushrooms, the benefits of good manure, pickles, board games, or making cheese, and she will talk your ear off for hours. FSC sparked her passion for food security and introduced her to the term food sovereignty back in 2015, and she is very grateful to be a part of the board of directors. 

Julia Tran

Julia is located in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 territory. Julia has a Social Work background and is deeply passionate about food justice, food dignity and working with migrant populations. Her work is inspired by her family, culture, and deep connections to the community. Julia’s approach aims to reframe food as more than a basic need for survival and issue of scarcity. She is inspired by foods’ powerful connection to our health, sense of self, dignity, culture, and community. 

Julia has been working at the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative since 2019 on issues of food security and food justice. Her work includes the (1) Grocery Run (GR), an emergency food access program; (2) Khair for All, Edmonton’s first affordable culturally honoring food box social enterprise pilot; (3) urban agriculture pilot locations; and (4) knowledge mobilization work to impact systems change in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 territory. Julia’s portfolio of work also includes fund development, social media, community engagement, community-based research, prototyping and managing stakeholder relations. Julia is currently part of the Edmonton Food Council and chairs the Food Equity working group and continues to work closely with the MCHB as a consultant.

Nathalie Vengal

Nathalie is a food security and labour rights activist who works as a National Representative and the Chair of the Young Workers Committee at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada). In 2016, Nathalie founded the first youth-led food bank in the city of Toronto, which still operates today and is dedicated to serving the Latin community and hundreds of individuals, youth and families from equity-deserving groups. In her spare time, she works diligently with non-profit organizations and the municipal government in Toronto to address food insecurity and food policy. 

Wendie L. Wilson

Wendie L. Wilson is a mother, educator, artist and writer. Born and raised in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Wendie is a descendant of African Nova Scotians who have had history in the province for 400+ years. She has a keen interest in documenting the food history of this distinct cultural group and collecting the narratives connected to Canada’s oldest Black cuisine. Wendie is dedicated to elevating the profile of the community and sharing their  culture with others. Utilizing her Masters in Africentric Leadership has allowed her to view situations through an African-centered lens.

Wendie grew up in one of the largest public housing projects in Nova Scotia and experienced firsthand the effects of food insecurity and how food is directly connected to an innate sense of well-being on multiple levels. Throughout her 20 years as an educator in the public school system, Wendie has witnessed the impact food has on learning. Eliminating both visible and invisible barriers to healthy, fresh and local food through access to community gardens has been her most recent passion.

As a co-founder of the African Nova Scotian Freedom School, she is dedicated to contextualizing the history and culture of African Nova Scotians and making it accessible to those that it impacts, believing that education is the great equalizer. As a member of the Coalition for Healthy School Food Advisory in NS, she is invested in seeing a Canada-wide school food program implemented as a part of the educational path to equality.

Chris Young

Chris is recognized as an innovative senior technology executive. He has more than 25 years of experience in building and leading highly engaged, highly technical global teams who produce market-leading software for artistic creators in the media and entertainment industries. He has expertise in innovation, acquisition integration, cultural transformation, global operations and executive development.

Since 2000, Chris has worked with entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations who help change the lives of those facing global climate challenges. For four years, Chris has held board director duties with Kickstart International, based in San Francisco & Nairobi, helping to create a food-secure future built upon equitable access to the tools that make farming a productive and resilient enterprise in Sub-saharan Africa. Chris was moved to join Food Secure Canada so that he could do more at home for food security.

Chris is a holder of the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors and is committed to achieving the highest standard of directorship. Chris holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from McGill University and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.