Making Money with
Contaminated Properties:
Seizing the Opportunities

Mark Ramsay
Mayor of Campbellton NB

Mark Ramsay has served the community of Campbellton as an elected councillor since 1999, and as Mayor since 2001, and is currently President of the Cities of NB Association. He has training and background in the hospitality industry, and is currently the manager of Larry’s Gulch, a "rustic" lodge maintained by the Provincial Government, which is well-known as an exclusive resort/get away for politicians and friends of the government in office. He has worked in several communities in New Brunswick, as well as western Canada.

Mark is actively involved in hunting, canoeing, volunteer for fund raising events and community participation.

James R Evans
Senior Manager Corporate Environmental Affairs,
RBC Financial Group, Toronto

JAMES (Jamie) EVANS is a Senior Manager of Environmental Risk in the Corporate Environmental Affairs group at RBC Financial Group in Toronto. Mr. Evans is responsible for environmental risk issues bank-wide with an emphasis on environmental credit issues related to property transactions in Canada the US as well as project finance in the developing world. A geologist by training, Mr. Evans received his B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo and an M.Eng. from the University of Western Ontario. Prior to working at the bank he spent 14 years as an environmental consultant with several major consulting firms and has worked on projects in Canada, the US, China and Barbados.

Mr. Evans is a professional geologist, a member of the Environmental Bankers Association, and the Environmental Issues Committee of the Canadian Bankers Association and is RBC’s representative for the Equator Principles Financial Initiative. He is a former member of the Waterloo Region Business Pollution Prevention Program Steering Committee and has also been a participant at meetings on Brownfield redevelopment at the Waterfront Regeneration Trust and a former task force member on the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy.

Bernard F. Miller,
Managing Partner/CEO McInnes Cooper

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bernie Miller is Managing Partner and CEO of McInnes Cooper, Atlantic Canada’s largest law partnership. Bernie has practiced law with McInnes Cooper since his admission to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1989. He became a member of the New Brunswick Bar in 1993, and in 1997 relocated to Moncton to open the firm’s New Brunswick office. Bernie has been instrumental in developing McInnes Cooper’s environmental law practice. In his practice, he has represented industries, institutions, banks and receivers regarding various environmental law issues. Bernie is past Chair, Canadian Bar Association Environmental Law Section (New Brunswick) and a past Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section (Nova Scotia Branch).

Danny McInnis
Field Supervisor,
Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry, Government of P.E.I.

A graduate of Holland College, Mr. McInnis has been employed with the Department for more than thirty years. Over the years, his duties have been many and varied within the environmental field, including Investigation of groundwater contamination cases; pollution prevention; and management of contaminated sites. Mr. McInnis manages the contaminated sites program, and duties include supervising Departmental field staff’s assessment of petroleum spill cleanups, acting as the Department’s representative on Atlantic PIRI since 1997 (and presently Co-Chair), reviewing consultants’ environmental site assessment and risk assessment reports, reviewing and approving proposed remedial action plans for petroleum contaminated sites, ensuring the “Contaminated Site Management Process,” outlined in the Department’s Petroleum Hydrocarbon Remediation Regulations is complied with, and preparing legal cases for prosecution.

Neil Hardy, BSc., MRICS, AACI
Altus-Helyer Group, St. John’s

Neil was educated in England, obtaining an honours degree in Estate Management (valuation option) at Reading University and articled in Liverpool achieving professional membership of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1980 and obtained his Canadian professional designation of AACI. Moving to Newfoundland from Halifax in 1982, Neil was responsible for establishing a St. John's office and building a sound client base. From being an owner of a private consulting practice, he and his partners amalgamated with other offices across the country in 2005 and formed Altus Group Limited which is an ‘income trust’ listed on the TSX. Altus Group is a multi-disciplinary company involved in all aspects of real estate including research/valuation/advisory, quantity survey / construction cost management, property tax management, economic analysis and geomatics.

Over his career, Neil has specialized in a variety of property types including investment valuations of office / retail / hotels, expropriation, special projects such as major industrial and special use properties, assessment appeals and expert testimony. More recently, he has been heavily involved in ski resort and golf community resort development valuation on a national basis, mainly in British Columbia and Alberta. He has given talks on a variety of topics at conferences and before industry groups. He is also active in provincial business and community associations, and is an avid hiker.

Carolynn Reid
Economic Development and Real Estate, City of Hamilton

With the foundation of the Brownfield Office, the City of Hamilton is capitalizing on innovative solutions to take advantage of existing industrial spaces.

The office was created in the spring of 2007 and Carolynn Reid, formerly of the city’s Small Business Enterprise Centre (SBEC), is the office’s coordinator.

Reid, a born and bread Hamiltonian with a Bachelor of Commerce from McMaster University, brings to the position eight years of project management experience from the SBEC.

“The establishment of the Brownfield Office is a huge step towards achieving environmental sustainability in Hamilton,” says Reid. “It is also important for the city’s economic viability. I am proud to be a part of it.”

One of Reid’s duties is to inform developers of the incentives available through the city’s Environmental Remediation and Site Enhancement (ERASE) program. Since the plan’s inception in 2001, upwards of 100 acres of Hamilton’s brownfield sites have been remediated.

David Harper
Kilmer Brownfield Management Limited, Toronto

Mr. Harper is a managing partner in the Kilmer Brownfield Equity Fund which is the Canada’s first private equity fund to specialize in brownfield redevelopment in the Canadian marketplace. The Fund’s size is $100 million, with capital committed by both institutional and private investors. The pairing of brownfield redevelopment and private equity capital is intended to specifically address the financial barriers that have historically impeded activity on brownfield sites during the site restoration and redevelopment stages.

Mr. Harper’s primary role is to quantify the environmental risks associated with the Fund’s brownfield opportunities and to integrate site remedial strategies with site redevelopment and finance. Mr. Harper practices as a “qualified person”’ and is a panel advisor to the Canadian Brownfield Network (CBN). Mr. Harper’s previous experience includes thirteen years as an environmental consultant with specialized expertise in applied site remediation with brownfield redevelopment. He has a detailed understanding with the many challenges commonly associated in Brownfield revitalization and the various perspectives of both public and private stakeholders.

Bill Pellerin, C.E.T., G.S.C.
Giffels Atlantic

Cynthia Rattle, MCIP, RPP
Senior Researcher
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Cynthia is a senior researcher in CMHC’s Sustainable Planning and Regulations Group. She manages research studies on issues, opportunities and approaches which can lead to more sustainable communities. Cynthia is responsible for CMHC’s Sustainable Planning and Development Workshop for Small Communities, which provides basic, practical information about sustainable development issues. She also managed CMHC’s brownfield research which reviewed the progress that has been made in Canada in overcoming the challenges facing this type of redevelopment and profiled residential brownfield redevelopment initiatives.

Working both in the public and private sector over the past 29 years, her areas of practice have included land use planning and housing, and social impact assessment and public consultation for infrastructure projects, including hazardous waste treatment and waste management facilities.

Pierre-Marcel Desjardins
Dept. of Economics, Université de Moncton and Director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development

Pierre-Marcel Desjardins has been teaching economics at the Université de Moncton since 1990. He is also research associate at the Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration. From 2003 to 2005, he was Associate Director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development and, from 1996 to 2001, he held the Chaire des caisses populaires acadiennes en études coopératives.

Pierre-Marcel has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. He has received both his bachelor and master’s degrees in economics from the Université de Moncton. His doctoral dissertation was titled “Trade Liberalization and Subnational Regions; with Evidence from Atlantic Canada”. His current research projects focus on regional economic development, rural economic development, public policy, fiscal federalism and trade. He has been called upon by the governments of Canada and New Brunswick to work on studies pertaining to socio-economic development.

Pierre-Marcel is a member of the Management Council of the Pays de la Sagouine since 2000, and its President since 2001. He also is Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Kent-Beauséjour credit union and a member of the Board of Directors of the New Brunswick Museum. Pierre-Marcel and his wife, Justine Losier, live in Sainte-Marie-de-Kent with Lucie, their 8 year old daughter.

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