Connect with Canada
The application period for Canada’s top accelerator of policy leaders is officially open. Apply by March 19!
Our supporters and partners
Become an Action Canada Fellow
Learn more about how you can become a more effective leader, affect policy making in Canada and join a community of change makers.
The application process for the Action Canada Fellowship is now open for 2023/24. Learn more and apply by March 19, 2023 at midnight EDT.
Action Canada Community
More than 250 outstanding Canadians whose talents, experiences and perspectives represent the mosaic of our country have been Action Canada Fellows, connected through shared experiences in communities across Canada. Action Canada Alumni form a community that aims to make positive impacts on public policy across the country and around the globe. Action Canada is about today’s leaders nurturing the next generation of leadership in Canada.
Learn more about the leaders who are part of this unique community.
Discover Our Fellows & Alumni
Fellows
Each year we select up to 20 emerging leaders to become Action Canada Fellows. They are the top candidates from a nationwide call for applications, hailing from major cities and smaller communities such as Carcross, Yukon; Witless Bay, NL and Fermont, QC.
They represent all sectors, including business, NGOs, science, government and academia. What they share in common is a commitment to Canada and a demonstrated engagement with public policy.
Discover our Fellows from this year and past years.
- Alika
- Lafontaine
2013/2014 Fellow
After completing his Bachelors of Science in chemistry, he completed his MD at the University of Saskatchewan followed by a five-year fellowship in anesthesiology. In the midst of his fellowship Alika became CBC’s “Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister,” winning the national competition with a platform focused on reconciling the Treaty relationship between Canada’s Indigenous Peoples and Canadians.
Alika currently practices as an anesthesiologist in Northern Alberta, serves as vice-president of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada and is an elected member of the representative forum of the Alberta Medical Association. He is also a founding partner of Pure Enviro Management Canada, a national bioremediation company that decontaminates petroleum and chlorinated solvent waste.
Alika Lafontaine is a 30-year-old Aboriginal physician of mixed heritage, born and raised in Southern Saskatchewan/Treaty 4 territory. After Alika was labeled learning-disabled as a child, his parents made the decision to homeschool him and began the pattern of hard work and deliberate mentorship that defines him today. At age 16, Alika became one of the youngest Aboriginal recipients of a prestigious undergraduate NSERC research grant and remains the youngest recipient of the Indspire Award, the highest honour Canada’s Indigenous Peoples give their own.
- Tiara
- Létourneau
2010/2011 Fellow
In 2010 Tiara became an Action Canada Fellow and chaired the Action Canada Task Force on Canadian Household Debt. She has held leadership positions in a variety of organizations including the think tank Canada25 and the Compassionate Eye Foundation. She also held the position of Senior Editor for Economics at The Cambridge Globalist, Cambridge University’s foreign affairs magazine.
Tiara Letourneau is a strategist in the financial sector. She currently works with the Green Climate Fund, assisting in the development of its Strategic Plan and Private Sector Facility. She holds a Masters of Finance from Cambridge University and has a background in international development, corporate strategy, and commercial and retail banking. She has completed research in microfinance, Islamic banking, banking history, and alternative models of corporate governance in universal banks. Previously she worked as a Manager of Strategy at RBC, and has held positions in Aboriginal finance and microfinance. Prior to 2008 Tiara worked in international development, specializing in microfinance and business-development training for street-traders. She also holds a Masters of Development Studies from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
- David
- Helliwell
2003/2004 Fellow
David is a software entrepreneur who has spent his career dedicated to energy efficiency and more recently to improving the delivery of specialist healthcare in Canada. In 2006, after 10 years spent between the energy industry and as the Director of Policy for a Canadian cabinet minister, he co-founded Pulse Energy, shepherding its evolution into the world’s leading energy intelligence software company for businesses at the time of its sale in 2014. Since 2017 he has been co-founder and CEO of Thrive Health, a Vancouver-based health software dedicated to stopping patients from falling through the cracks in the healthcare system.
- Nicholas
- Chadi
2012/2013 Fellow
Striving to provide better health care for vulnerable children and adolescents, Nicholas has worked with marginalized communities in rural and urban Canada, South America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Passionate about medical research, journalism and health care policy, Nicholas combines his clinical duties with freelance reporting, policy and research work in the areas of adolescent substance use, mental health, and mindfulness-based interventions. In his spare time, Nicholas enjoys swimming, running, playing the piano and is part of a semi-professional a cappella group called The Eight Tracks.
Nicholas Chadi is a pediatrician specialized in adolescent medicine. He is currently a Pediatric Addiction Medicine Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital (Harvard Medical School). Raised in Montreal, Nicholas completed a double diploma in jazz piano performance and health sciences before obtaining his medical degree at McGill University. He completed his pediatric residency at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center, where he became chief resident in 2014-2015. In 2017, he completed a fellowship in adolescent medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children and a journalism fellowship at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto. Nicholas is a mindfulness practitioner and instructor trained in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). He is also currently enrolled as a Masters of Public Health student at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
- Jasmine
- Irwin
2022/23 Fellow
In her current role, Jas has spearheaded projects ranging from mapping the infrastructure gap in Canada’s North, to examining the role of artificial intelligence tech on children’s privacy rights, to researching career guidance as a policy tool for those with barriers to work. Before joining Springboard, Jas worked as a Policy Advisor and Press Secretary to Ontario’s Deputy Premier, where she worked on key policies like the transformation of Ontario’s Student Assistance Program. She began her career working in post-secondary student advocacy, creating province-wide campaigns on issues like tuition affordability and pay equity.
Raised in London, Ontario, Jas has a B.A. in Media and the Public Interest from Western University, and an M.A. in Political and Legal Thought from Queens University. At Queens, her research focus was on corrections policy in Canada and the overrepresentation of Indigenous women in high-security settings.
Jas also enjoys reading, lightly interrogating friends and strangers about the things they are interested in, and performing live comedy.
Jasmine (Jas) Irwin is a Senior Associate at Springboard Policy, a public policy consulting firm that helps organizations to use their voices and expertise to shape important policy conversations. Jas has always been drawn to good ideas and driven to maximize their impact by helping to communicate those ideas to others in clear and compelling ways. She has eight years of experience working at the intersection of communications and policy to build consensus and spur change.
- Jason
- McVicar
2019/2020 Fellow
He has worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, is a trustee of the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society International Education Foundation and is member of the Pain Committee with the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. Current active areas of work include medical education in low and middle-income countries, access to health resources in rural and remote communities and surgical health outcomes in Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
Jason McVicar, MD, FRCPC is an anesthesiologist at The Ottawa Hospital and an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. He holds a fellowship in Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine.
- Samira
- Thomas
2012/2013 Fellow
She feels incredibly lucky to have been born and raised in Canada where difference is more often valued than seen as a threat, and it is her hope that through her work, future generations will inherit a world with less violence than the one in which we live today.
Samira attended Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, where she completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. She graduated Pi Sigma Alpha from Brown University with honors, and she holds a Master of City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Samira Thomas is a passionate educator who is completing her Ph.D in Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. Her dissertation focuses on cosmopolitanism, a mindset and approach to life that fosters respect and compassion at the individual and global level. She is also currently the Academic Director for the Sparks Academies in Afghanistan, six early childhood development schools that promote authentically Afghan education for young children and their communities. Through her academic study and her work with the Sparks Academies, Samira strives to promote positive ways for us to navigate towards understanding in the midst of the discomfort that difference so often brings.
- Shannon
- Wells
2010/2011 Fellow
Shannon is a Banff Forum Member, 2010 Action Canada Fellow and Chairperson of the Action Canada Taskforce on High Growth Entrepreneurship whose work on innovation and economic policy has been published in the Globe and Mail, Policy Options and MacLean’s, and presented to senior leaders across Canada. She is founder of the Walter Gordon Massey Symposium on Public Policy, a fellow of Massey College and Green College, and holds graduate degrees from the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and a First Class Honours BA from Dalhousie University.
Shannon Wells is a Recruitment of Policy Leaders inductee in the federal public service and since 2009 has served in the Privy Council Office, Treasury Board Secretariat and Finance Canada, where she currently leads strategic policy and planning for the establishment of a national securities regulator and advises on global capital markets trends and international financial sector reforms. Prior to joining government, Shannon was strategic advisor to the President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, to the founders of Samara Canada and participated in the prestigious Parliamentary Internship Programme.
- Shoshanna
- Saxe
2015/2016 Fellow
She was awarded the 2019 OPEA Engineering Medal – Young Engineer. Her research and commentary have been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Toronto Star, The Financial Post, and Wired, including “What We Really Need Are Good ‘Dumb’ Cities” (New York Times, July 2019).
Dr. Shoshanna Saxe is an Associate Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering. She holds a masters from MIT and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She investigates the relationship between the infrastructure we build and the society we create to identify opportunities – and pathways – to better align infrastructure provision with sustainability. Saxe is a former Action Canada fellow, sits on Waterfront Toronto’s Capital Peer Review Panel, Metrolinx Project Evaluation Committee and the board of ActIon Canada.
- Susanna
- Haas Lyons
2005/2006 Fellow
A masters candidate at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, the Environment and Sustainability, Susanna’s research focuses on collaborative decision-making on sustainability planning. She holds a certificate in Public Participation from the International Association for Public Participation and was a 2005 Action Canada Fellow. Susanna has a B.A. in Communications from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and was a participant of the school’s inaugural Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue. Susanna is a requested speaker on topics of citizen participation in governance and the use of the Internet in civic life.
Susanna Haas Lyons is a citizen engagement practitioner and communications strategist. She has over six years experience with some of North America’s largest and most complex public participation projects. Most recently, Susanna served as Communications Manager and Program Associate at AmericaSpeaks, a leader in methods that bring together citizens and decision-makers to create better policy. Susanna also developed AmericaSpeaks’ online citizen engagement strategy. Earlier, Susanna worked as a Stakeholder Engagement Consultant for business, government and non-profit organizations. Notably, Susanna served as Project Coordinator with the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.
Policy Ideas
Each year, Fellows are inspired by a critical policy issue that they examine over the term of the Fellowship. Working in teams, Fellows select, analyze and research an important question. They confer with national experts, establish partnerships with stakeholders, and publish a policy report that feeds innovative ideas into the public policy ecosystem. Many of their recommendations have influenced federal and provincial policy, sparked new organizations and helped improve the lives of Canadians.
Read this year’s policy ideas by Action Canada Fellows on place-based approaches to the future of work.
Our Most Recent Policy Papers
Action Canada in numbers
- 262 Action Canada Fellows from more than 82 different communities across Canada;
- More than 100 communities in Canada visited;
- More than 800 impactful dialogues among Fellows and community leaders;
- 17 years of Fellowship programming excellence;
- 48 ground-breaking policy papers written; and
- One million connections made.
262
Fellows From More Than
84 communities
17
Years of Excellence
>1M
Connections made
In A Few Words
