Steven Guilbeault, the new Liberal minister of Canadian Heritage, has been a prominent advocate in the fight against the climate crisis.
Elected in the Quebec riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie, his commitment to environmental issues began when he climbed a tree at age five to protect it from real estate developers about to cut down the woods behind his home.
Twenty-five years later, he scaled the CN Tower in Toronto to urge Canada to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
In 1993, Guilbeault co-founded Équiterre, the largest environmental organization in Quebec. He served as its senior director from 2008 to 2018. He has also worked as a director and campaign manager for Greenpeace, and was a strategic advisor for more than 10 years at Cycle Capital Management, a Canadian fund dedicated to the development of clean technologies. Guilbeault has also worked for Copticom, a consulting firm specializing in the green and social economy.
An avid cyclist, he has been riding his bike year-round for three decades.
Source: Government of Canada