see also Tom Axworthy on WN

2008

15 May 2008 desiree-mcgraw-the-sauve-scholars/
At 38 years of age, Désirée McGraw has a CV of someone twice her age. As a high school activist, the 16-year-old McGraw and three other students toured the nation’s secondary schools promoting global peace during the 1980s.

Désirée McGraw to head Sauvé Scholars
Posted by Diana Thébaud Nicholson
February 15, 2008
New Executive Director heads Jeanne Sauvé Foundation and Scholars Program
McGill lecturer Désirée Marielle McGraw, who has worked with Nobel Laureate Al Gore to bring his climate-change message to Canadians, has been named Executive Director of the Jeanne Sauvé Foundation and Scholars Program.
The appointment was announced by Harold (Sonny) Gordon, Chairman, and Jean-François Sauvé, President, of the Sauvé Foundations.

2007

MAN OF ACTIONAl Gore can sometimes be preachy and annoying. But give the man his due: He's changed the world
Jonathan Kay, National Post Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
In the lead-up to last week's G8 Summit, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the genesis of a made-in-Washington plan to fight global warming. Then in Germany, he went further by joining other Western leaders in embracing a new multilateral mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. His turnaround signals an amazing landmark: The world's pre-eminent conservative icon and hydrocarbon apologist has recognized the reality of man-made global warming and the need to fight it.

From: Desiree McGraw [mailto:dezm1@msn.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 12:53 PM
Subject: Aid to Africa

FYI for those of you who missed it... Below is the original version of my letter to the Globe published in yesterday's paper (in abridged form).

"As senior policy advisor on international cooperation in the Martin Government, I want to set the record straight regarding our aid policy with respect to Africa. Your claim that "Mr. Martin endorsed an agreement at the Group of Eight summit to double aid, while knowing full well that Ottawa's private figures no longer matched his public promises" is patently false and unfounded.

"When the 2005 budget was being prepared, the level of aid provided by Canada to Africa in the last completed fiscal year (2003-04) was expected to reach $1.4 billion; the budget committed to double that level to reach $2.8 billion by 2008-09. In fact, the final numbers for 2003-04 came in at $1.05 billion in Canadian aid to Africa. But these technical annual cash-flow issues did not change Canada's overall commitment to Africa. The Liberal commitment never changed- even if it meant making up for the shortfall through additional aid (beyond a doubling) to Africa. Indeed, our government was on track to exceed our target by the time we left office. Only the most mean-spirited government would rely on figures which would result in giving less aid to those who need it the most. This is but the latest foreign policy failure by the Harper government as it continues to diminish and distort previous Liberal commitments in its attempt to distract Canadians from its poor performance in the areas of environment, defense, diplomacy and now development."

Friday 01 June 2007
Dear friends and colleagues,

You have all undoubtedly heard about (if not viewed) the Academy-award winning documentary “Inconvenient Truth” based on the slide show former US Vice-President Al Gore has developed over the last 18 years on the science of climate change. What you may not know is that in the wake of the film’s success, Mr. Gore established “The Climate Project” with a view to training community and opinion leaders to deliver an adapted version of his slide show. So far he has trained 1000 people over the course of six separate sessions in Nashville, TN. As one of three lucky Canadians invited to participate in the most recent US training held in April, I have committed to deliver a minimum of 10 presentations over the course of the next year. In the wake of local media coverage

(/montrealgazette and montrealmirror) , I have been fortunate enough to have booked my target number in a few short weeks. However, I am now lining up additional presentations for the fall – with a particular focus on non-traditional audiences (such as business and other professionals) beyond the usual suspects in schools, community centres, churches, synagogues, etc. I am also working with other Canadian presenters (in particular Shelley Kath) both to adapt the slide show to the Canadian context and to bring Mr. Gore to Canada to train more Canadians directly.

I have found that most Canadians are fully on board with the scientific consensus regarding global warming, are tired of all the political posturing around the issue, and are keen to focus on solutions (individual, local and national) to the problem. However, some media – in their efforts to present a “balanced” story – continue to solicit views from discredited and marginal voices. Most recently, for example, Canada’s National Post ran a highly misleading and ill-researched front-page critique of An Inconvenient Truth. The 20 Canadians who had the opportunity to train directly with Mr. Gore in Nashville debated the issues and after careful consideration decided to go ahead with a response to the National Post piece. While space did not permit us to counter every inaccuracy in the original Post piece, we addressed some of the main ones. Please find below an op-ed my fellow Gore-trained presenter Shelley Kath and I co-authored in today’s National Post. Below is the full original text submitted, while the link provides an abridged version printed in the Post.

If you are interested in booking a presentation (large or small) by a Gore-trained presenter in your community (with a focus on local solutions to curb climate change), please go to one of the following websites: In Canada The climate project and in the USA

Regards, Désirée

An Incovenient Truth

trailer more Al Gore

Friday 01 June 2007 In defence of An Inconvenient Truth by Shelley Kath and Désirée McGraw, National Post

many by Kevin Libin 0n "An Inconvenient Truth" from the National Post [you can find the story that needed defending]
or many many more in the NP

So how did An Inconvenient Truth become required classroom viewing?
Even climate change experts say many of the claims in Al Gore's film are wrong.
Kevin Libin, National Post
Saturday, May 19, 2007 First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.

Wed1311 Continuing the past two Wednesday Nights' focus on Climate/Environmental Change Wed1309page2/a> and Wed1310page2 , we warmly (no pun intended) recommend Tom Friedman's long piece The Power of Green in the New York Times Magazine For those who cannot access it, we have a copy in Word that we can forward on request. We would also point you in the direction of the ENN story Global Warming May Put U.S. in Hot Water that reconfirms the overwhelming importance of water to the survival of life on earth. For further discussion on the topic, we hope to have with us Désirée McGraw, just returned from Al Gore's "climate change boot camp".

She'll be bearer of bad tidings

Désirée Mcgraw, a long-time green activist, will put a local face on Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth

MICHELLE LALONDE, The Gazette

Published: Monday, April 16, 2007

She doesn't look or sound anything like Al Gore. She's younger, female and Canadian, but Montrealer Désirée McGraw has just spent three days learning how to deliver the former U.S. vice-president's famous slide show on climate change to a Canadian audience.

Last week, McGraw attended a kind of "climate change boot camp" run by Gore in Nashville, Tenn., where she got tips from the climate change guru on how to explain the science and impact of global warming in a way that inspires action rather than despair.

In the past six months, Gore has trained 1,000 people, mostly Americans, to adapt his slide show for smaller, locally active groups across the U.S. and in a few other countries with key roles to play in the global battle against catastrophic climate change. The idea is for local personalities to tailor the presentation by adding information on local impacts and solutions.

McGraw is one of 20 Canadians chosen to bring Gore's show, which took him 18 years to put together and inspired an Oscar-winning documentary, to Canada. Gore was looking for people with strong environmental backgrounds, some kind of public profile, or great speaking skills. McGraw had all of the above.

In her teens, McGraw, now 37, completed a cross-country speaking tour on the nuclear arms race and co-hosted a video series with David Suzuki on nuclear issues. At 19, she served as youth adviser to the Canadian delegation to a United Nations special session on disarmament.

She served on the Canadian delegation to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 , worked as a consultant, researcher and university lecturer and then landed a job as director of policy and acting chief of staff to Canada's minister of international co-operation. Most recently, she headed the Liberal Renewal Task Force on Environment and Sustainable Development, producing a report last fall that has become the blueprint for the party's current environmental policy.

Each participant in Gore's boot camp went home with a copy of the slide show and signed a contract to present it at least 10 times over the next year. The presenters are not paid by Gore, and can only charge enough to cover their expenses. This is in stark contrast to Gore's practice, which is to charge hundreds of dollars for tickets.

McGraw couldn't explain why Gore is now handing his material over to amateurs. But she says it makes sense to have local presenters take it farther.

She'll be translating the material into French, probably adding slides about local phenomena, like the 1998 ice storm or problems with polar bears in Canada's North. Because surveys show most Quebecers are already convinced climate change is happening and must be stopped, she'll focus more on solutions than Gore does, she said.

And she'll be trying to connect on a personal level.

McGraw was nine months' pregnant when she attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal in December 2005. Her son was born as the conference was wrapping up.

"The whole thing has become more real for me. It was a policy challenge before and I'm a bit of a policy geek, so that's how I was approaching it. But then Jack was born and I just think about it differently. It's more real and more raw."

McGraw's first audience will be a playgroup in Westmount.

"They are all moms, most of them professionals who've taken time off to look after young children. I think they are a very powerful audience."

She said the Gore protégés are from all different walks of life. In her session were a professional football player (Dhani Jones from the Philadelphia Eagles), a couple of mayors, a state senator and his son, and several high-ranking business executives.

"There has to be a cultural shift, so that it becomes just embarrassing to own an SUV, for example. It has to be a combination of a series of culture-changing conversations that we have with our families and neighbours, as well as new government incentives and disincentives."

McGraw notes she is no environmental hero. She describes herself as a middle-class person with a big old house in Montreal West that uses a lot of energy.

"I like my comforts and I know I've got to drive less.

"But as long as I'm moving in the direction of trying to change, I think my audiences will relate to me."

mlalonde@thegazette.canwest.com

For information on Al Gore's project, visit www.theclimateproject.org. For more details about a slide-show presentation in Montreal, send an email to theclimateproject-Montreal@hotmail.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

Wed1296 Desirée McGraw was welcomed after a long absence during which she chaired the Liberal Party's task force on the Environment for the Liberal Party Renewal Commission , an excellent document that rivals Stéphane Dion's policy papers in length.

2006

Please find attached a copy of the report of our Environment and Sustainable Development Taskforce of our Liberal Renewal Commission in advance of the official launch this evening at McGill University (details below). While I do not expect anyone but the most diehard environmentalist to make it through the entire 70-page document (the result of extensive and intensive consultations with dozens of experts, advocates and Liberals from across Canada), I would invite you to have a look at the summary of recommendations (also attached in French). I’m sorry I was not able to translate the whole document in time for today’s launch but I simply ran out of time…. I’m also enclosing a press release with details regarding tonight’s launch as well as key recommendations.

I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank those of you who contributed your time, expertise and ideas to this Report. While I am certain we will not all agree on every recommendation, I hope you will concur that it provides a solid foundation from which the Party can re-establish its environmental credentials. I am always encouraged when some people claim you’ve gone too far, while others complain you’ve not gone far enough.

I look forward to continuing the discussion!
Regards, Désirée M. McGraw

Liberals go left on green Monday Nov 27, 2006 | Contact us

Désirée McGraw
National Executive Elections Désirée McGraw

Désirée has long been a dedicated Liberal, most recently serving as Chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Taskforce of the Liberal Renewal Commission. She has been described by national media as one of Canada's most influential people on environmental issues and among the country's most promising New Liberals. Désirée is active in her native riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce - Lachine, where she serves on the Executive and President of the Women's Club.

Professional experience
For the past twenty years, Désirée has championed sustainable development both in Canada and abroad. As Director of Policy to Canada's Minister of International Cooperation, the Hon. Aileen Carroll, Désirée worked closely with Liberal Members of Parliament and Cabinet to ensure that Canada's foreign policy would reflect the country's values and interests. Prior to that, she lectured in International Development at McGill University.

Désirée McGraw, 35, says she was reluctant to have her belly photographed when Hollinger, a friend, suggested it.
"I'm quite modest and I haven't been showing my belly during my pregnancy," said McGraw, whose baby is due in early December. "I'm so glad I went ahead with it. It's a celebration and something you want to document." © The Gazette (Montreal) 2005

Liberals go left on green

'Kyoto plus'; Task force wants to radically expand environment policy

Moving to rebuild Canada's battered international image, a Liberal policy committee is proposing a sweeping and vastly expanded environmental program that it says would make the party greener than the Green Party if adopted intact.

The policy, to be made public this evening in Montreal, calls on the party to adopt a more radical greenhouse gas emission standard than the Kyoto accord demands, national speed limits on commercial vehicles, a ban within one year on such toxins as asbestos, an end to ocean bottom trawling and the scrapping of fossil fuel tax breaks for Alberta tar sands projects.

The report, drawn up by a party task force headed by prominent Montreal Liberal Désirée McGraw, is to be debated at this week's Liberal policy convention, which winds up with the selection of a new party leader on Saturday.

McGraw yesterday recognized the Liberals' record on the environment is far from sterling. She said the party "did not do enough soon enough" while in power and the blueprint is needed if Liberals are going to get serious about something Quebecers and other Canadians say should be a priority before the next election.

McGraw appears to have a powerful ally in her corner on this one, too. She said that in many respects the new policy more than meets a challenge made to her by the leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, a personal friend, to produce a document even the Greens would like. May was originally slated to be on the task force but withdrew when she became leader of the Greens. She is running for election today in a by-election in Ontario.

"Elizabeth said to me: 'If your report can meet and exceed what we in the Green Party are proposing ... I'm going to endorse it. I would have no problem supporting it.'

"I feel I've more than met her challenge."

McGraw recognized that some of the ideas in the 70-page blueprint would rock the boat so much they might never be applied.

But she argued her job was to focus on what "should be done" on the environment if the party is going to stop treating it as a so-called "soft" electoral theme.

McGraw, who has dedicated her report to her newborn son, Jack, and his future, said it's time Canada devoted as much resolve and energy to the environment as it has to the war in Afghanistan because, as with the war, it's the right thing to do.

"This is a clear and present danger here," McGraw said. "All I am saying is, let's apply the same resolve, resources and will toward this crisis."

Politically, McGraw, who arrives at the convention as an unaligned delegate in the leadership debate, conceded some of the plan will have to be "negotiated down" in the real world, but said the party needs a wake-up call.

"This is not the industry report. This is the environment report, and somebody needs to speak up for the environment."

The task force, which consulted Liberals and environmental and industry experts across the country, does not cost out the price of its plan but argues the Liberals need to go down the same path as other parties and back the sustainable development philosophy, which balances economic, environmental and social objectives.

That should be the party's new "triple bottom line" for all its policies - at home and internationally, the document says.

The task force is tough on the Conservatives for their lack of interest in the Kyoto environmental accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also comes down hard on the Liberals' own record.

"It is true that we Liberals did not do enough soon enough to translate our good environmental intentions into concrete action, particularly on the critical issue of climate change," McGraw writes in a forward to the report.

McGraw said the Liberals signed the original Kyoto Protocol in 1998, but spent the next four years talking about ratifying it instead of drafting implementation policies. Over time, "much of the momentum was lost," while the Conservatives were busy calling the science into question even after the vast majority of world experts were calling for urgent action.

Today, the Tories have "shirked" their international and domestic responsibilities and for the first time Canada has reneged on an international treaty, she said.

Referring to the recent scene of federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose feuding publicly with such strong Kyoto backers as the Quebec government and environmental groups at the Nairobi conference on Kyoto, the task force said, "Ambrose's own performance has been a failure domestically and a public embarrassment internationally."

"Canada must urgently shift from inspiring global ridicule to inspiring global action", McGraw said.

The task force comes down firmly in favour of what it calls a "Kyoto plus" policy, endorsing a 2005 joint report of the Pembina Institute-David Suzuki Foundation that says the old Kyoto target of reducing gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012 is no longer good enough.

The report said that to avoid dangerous climate change, the new target should be reducing the 1990 level by 25 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, figures to which the Liberals have signed on.

The Conservative government is much farther away from those numbers, arguing the original Kyoto targets were not realistic and would curb economic growth. The Tories noted that even while the Liberals were in power, preaching the virtues of the Kyoto accord, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada rose by 27 per cent above 1990 levels.

The Tories in October, instead, tabled their own solution, the Clean Air Act, which moves the baseline emission year from 1990 to 2003 and sets a firm target - reducing emissions by 45 to 65 per cent by 2050. The policy has been ridiculed by environmentalists as the "Dirty Air Act," because the deadline is so far off and there are no intermediary targets.

The Liberal plan, if implemented, would shake up a number of sensitive fronts and bring back some environmental programs the Tories have scrapped while in power. The plan proposes:

The creation of a new national energy strategy to reduce gas emissions through energy conservation and more efficient construction and appliances. Canada would get a "Climate Change Action Office," reporting to the prime minister.
Immediate environmental assessment of the oil sands development to address cumulative impacts on landscape, water use, air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Tax breaks would be redirected to other companies developing renewable energy and water recycling methods.
Major energy users and producers would face mandatory emission targets within a year.
Canada would adopt California's radical car emission standards by 2010, there would be greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks, while commercial fleets would face a mandatory 100 kilometre- an-hour speed limit.

Consumers would get financial incentives to purchase energy efficient vehicles like hybrids, there would be a direct investment in freight and intercity passenger infrastructures like the Windsor-Quebec City high speed train.
The Liberals would reinstate programs like EnerGuide, which helped consumers buy more efficient appliances, and the much maligned One Tonne challenge program would make a comeback to encourage conservation.
Phase out within one year the 100 most harmful chemicals, such as asbestos and mercury.
Implement a national biodiversity monitoring program.

Ban immediately bottom-trawling in Canadian fishing waters.
McGraw is to make the report public this evening at McGill University.
pauthier@thegazette.canwest.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

---

Désirée McGraw

Désirée McGraw

For the past 16 years, Désirée Marielle McGraw has worked as a consultant, researcher, reporter and spokesperson in the field of international relations on issues ranging from peace and security to environment and sustainable development. Currently, as a lecturer on globalization and governance at McGill University, Désirée is also a Director of the G8 Research Group based at the University of Toronto's Munk Center for International Studies.

Désirée serves on the board or executive of several national and international associations, including the International Federation of University Women, the International Studies Association, the Academic Council of the United Nations System, the UN Association of Canada, the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, and the London Goodenough Association of Canada.

Désirée currently works as a senior associate with Stratos, an Ottawa-based consulting firm specializing in "strategies to sustainability." As an expert on international negotiations and communications, she has advised a range of clients in the private and public sectors both in Canada and abroad. Désirée first became involved with the United Nations at age 18 when she was appointed by the Governor General of Canada to serve as a youth advisor to the Canadian Delegation to the UN's Third Special Session on Disarmament. Since that time, she has served on several national delegations to UN summits. Following her appointment by UN Under-Secretary-General Maurice Strong to serve as one of two World Youth Ambassadors to the 1992 Earth Summit, she spent four years working as a reporter for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (1993-1997), a global multimedia reporting service on environment and development.

Kimon Vallaskakis Wed 1070 Sept 4th, 2002 XIXth Gala des Etoiles clips, Kyoto: Kimon Valaskakis & Désirée McGraw; Dr. David Mitchell Désirée, John Curtin & Jacques Clément’s Mkt. Analysis: U.S. ECONOMY: & The Canadian dollar against dollarization? Désirée, Curtin, Dr. Mark Roper, on Medi Care 350 beds closed & Alzheimer’s disease Beryl P. Wajsmann on Roslyn Takeishi, Désirée Melikoff returned by Gerald Ratzer Wed1070 | slide show | Album | pan 4400x580

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