Speakers

Jill Clayton was sworn in as Alberta’s third Information and Privacy Commissioner on February 1, 2012. In February 2017, Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor in Council reappointed Jill Clayton as Information and Privacy Commissioner for a term to expire on January 31, 2022.

Ms. Clayton began her career with Alberta’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) in 2004 as a portfolio officer with the team responsible for ensuring oversight and compliance with Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). She served as acting director, PIPA, from 2007 to 2008 and director, PIPA, from 2008 to 2011. In June of 2010 Ms. Clayton was appointed Assistant Commissioner, responsible for the development, implementation and oversight of amendments to PIPA, particularly mandatory breach notification requirements.

Prior to her service with the OIPC Ms. Clayton worked as a privacy consultant, providing services to public- and private-sector clients, primarily in the health care, oil and gas, telecommunications and non-profit sectors. She also worked for the Bethany Care Society as manager, planning and performance measurement, from 2001 to 2002 and records management co-ordinator from 1998 to 2000.

Paul Einarsson is COO and Chairman of Geophysical Service Incorporated, an oil and gas exploration service company based in Calgary, Alberta. It is the largest owner of seismic data in the Canadian offshore areas. An original investor in the firm, Paul joined Geophysical Service Incorporated on a full-time basis in 1997. Paul’s areas of expertise include negotiations, government relations, marketing, advertising, sales and financial management. He sits on the Board of Directors of several national and international organizations, and is committed to his volunteer work with both the United Way and Canadian Blood Services. Paul completed his Master of Business Administration at Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas in 1988.

In a forty-year career in journalism, Catherine Ford has lived and worked across the country, but her home is Alberta and that’s where her heart is. Until her retirement from “being a thorn in the side of pompous politicians, overbearing bureaucrats and anyone in the public eye who is overstuffed with his or her own self-importance,” she was national columnist for CanWest News Service, based at the Calgary Herald. After 14 years, though, the “Dear Godless Bitch” has returned to journalism.

Catherine is a past president of Mensa Canada, the winner of ten Western Ontario Newspaper Awards, is a Board member of the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association

Sanjeev Gathani MAPP is a Governance, Risk and Compliance Professional with more than 20 years of experience in the Asia Pacific Region. Currently, the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Trainer of Better Business Governance – APAC Pte Ltd (BBG), and is a Certified Fraud Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator (Singapore), Expert Court Witness, and PACC-Certified Access and Privacy Professional.

Sanjeev has been invited to speak at  conferences and universities across the Asia Pacific Region and is a regular contributor of articles on matters pertaining to Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance.

Sanjeev earned a  Bachelor of Business from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and a Master of Business Administration – International Trade and E-Commerce from Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia).

Lara Guest’s practice focuses on litigation and dispute resolution in a variety of areas, including corporate/commercial litigation, class action defence, securities law, internal investigations and construction and infrastructure disputes. Lara has appeared as counsel before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Ontario Securities Commission.

Matthew MacNeil is a senior manager, Cyber Security, with Myers Norris Penney.

Kate Martin is Deputy City Clerk for the City of Calgary.

Michael McEvoy was appointed Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC by unanimous motion of the Legislative Assembly. He began his six-year term as an independent Officer of the Legislature on April 1, 2018.

Immediately prior to his appointment, Commissioner McEvoy was seconded from his position as Deputy Commissioner at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC), a role he had held since 2013, to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the United Kingdom. From September 2017 to March 2018, he helped lead the ICO’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

Commissioner McEvoy began his career at the OIPC in 2007, authoring more than 50 rulings under provincial access and privacy law. He also served as a public-school trustee for 12 years, including two terms as President of the British Columbia School Trustees' Association and one as President of the Canadian School Boards' Association and, in 2009, chaired the Greater Victoria United Way campaign.

Anneke Olvera

As a Manager at the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) responsible for Strategic Policy and Sector Engagement focusing on Innovation, Anneke specializes in collaborative working relationships with representatives from governments, industry and other external organisations that are the primary contributors, users, and beneficiaries of Canada’s standardization system.

Anneke has twenty years of experience working with practitioners and policy makers nationally and internationally in the field of standardization policy, and engaging with stakeholders to understand their priorities to initiate the development of potential strategies, programs or services that will address their objectives and needs. Anneke has worked closely with international standards and accreditation bodies, federal and provincial/territorial government, NGOs, and industry in support of setting appropriate standardization priorities as a means to enhance Canada's competitiveness and social well-being.

Sharon Polsky BIS MAPP is President of AMINAcorp.ca, President of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, and a Privacy by Design Ambassador with more than 30 years’ experience advising corporations, governments and organizations. She is also Editor‑in‑Chief of The Winston Report, the foremost quarterly journal of information access, privacy protection and data governance in Canada.

Sharon has presented to Senate Committees, Legislative Committees, and local and national conferences, and her insights are frequently sought by media and professional journals.

Ms. Polsky completed a thesis examining the legislation and regulations of Canada and Alberta to identify and assess whether and to what extent individual rights to privacy and to gain access to information is protected or imperiled.

Sharon holds a Master Access and Privacy Professional designation; is a member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Institute for Information and Privacy Studies; a member of the Health Information Management Program Advisory Committee, and a member of the National Privacy & Access Certification and Accreditation Advisory Board. She previously served as Vice-President of the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association, as an Executive Member of the Canadian Bar Association Alberta Privacy and Access Law Section, and the National Advisory Committee for the University of Alberta IAPP Program, and was a finalist for the 2010 EWF Women of Influence Award.

Senator Paula Simons was appointed as an independent senator in 2018. For 30 years prior to that she was an award-winning investigative journalist and a political columnist with a passion for issues relating to privacy, access to information, and human rights.

James Swanson is an Alberta lawyer and registered trademark agent with decades of practical experience in legal issues related to Technology and Science, Intellectual Property, Privacy, Cyber Security, Information Governance, New Media, Entertainment and Content. He is also a member of the Board of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada.

Colleen Sinclair practices law within the City of Calgary's Law and Legislative Services Department.

Susan Wortzman is a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto and specializes in the management of digital information. Wortzman is the firm’s go-to person on e-discovery and information management, and author of E-Discovery in Canada, Third Edition, published by LexisNexis Canada in 2017.

In addition to practicing law since 2002, Oliver Ho served four years (2002-2005) as an elected member of the Senate of the University of Calgary, and was a member of the selection committee for the first Dean of the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. He has also been a regular interviewer facilitating the admissions process for the medical school at the University of Calgary, and is presently on the Admissions Committee for the University of Calgary Faculty of Law. Oliver is also a member of the Legal Archives Society of Alberta and is an Advisor to the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers Western.

Oliver has been a volunteer judge for various University of Calgary Faculty of Law moot teams, is a volunteer judge and evaluator for the CPLED articling program, a coach for various high school debate teams, and a judge for the Canadian Bar Association Law Day Trial Competition.

Oliver is also a sessional instructor at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

Before becoming a lawyer, Sean Carrie played an active role in McGill student affairs as an editor at the university newspaper, and served as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of Canadian University Press.

After completing his undergraduate studies, Sean worked at the National Post newspaper in Toronto where, in addition to his editing, fact-checking and re-writing responsibilities, he wrote a daily column for publication in the Arts & Life section, and contributed other articles on a regular basis.

Sean served as the first Case Management Counsel for the Toronto-based Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and assisted in complex criminal and constitutional litigation in the Superior Court of Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada before returning to Alberta to practice law with JSS Barristers.