You can find descriptions of each of our presenters below.
Day 1
Day 1 Keynote Presenter
Mahadeo Sukhai
Mahadeo is Canada’s first blind biomedical research scientist, with more than 20 years’ experience as an academic researcher and educator. He leads the research program for CNIB and our two affiliate organizations, Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada and CNIB Deafblind Community Services, and is the principal investigator for research projects to understand the lived experience of persons who are blind, Deafblind, and partially sighted in Canada. Mahadeo also leads CNIB’s international affairs work. As CNIB’s Chief Accessibility Officer, he oversees all three organizations’ cultural change efforts on accessibility and inclusion for persons with disabilities and intersecting social identities.
Day 1 Presenters
Tilak Dutta
Tilak Dutta is a Scientist at KITE and is part of the Home and Community Team. The objective of Tilak’s work is to develop better tools to support successful aging in our own homes. Tilak’s team is currently working on this multi-year project to develop recommendations for making Canada’s national parks barrier free by 2040. The long term vision of the team is to ensure individuals with disabilities and their caregivers are able to participate in all activities offered at Canada’s national parks.
One in five Canadians over the age of 15 and one in twenty children under the age of 15 have a disability. The Accessible Canada act requires that our national parks become accessible to these individuals and their caregivers by 2040.
Tilak holds cross-appointments at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the University of Toronto.
Haley Flaro
Haley Flaro has more than 25 years of management and administration experience in non-profit and community-based sectors. A leader in health and disability advocacy, she has been making her mark in communities throughout New Brunswick as Ability New Brunswick’s executive director since 2006. Haley is a community builder, a published author, as well as a dedicated advocate for persons living with a mobility disability, youth, seniors, and persons living in poverty.
Haley Flaro serves on several government committees and boards related to poverty, social assistance, employment, health, accessibility and disability. Among others, Haley is vice-chairperson of WorkSafeNB, chairperson of the Accessible Canada Outdoor Spaces Technical Committee, and a Board member for the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
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Lisa Franks
Lisa Franks is an outdoor enthusiast and adventurer. For the past two years, she has lived in her self-designed wheelchair accessible campervan and traveled throughout Western Canada and the US. She is passionate about adaptive mountain biking (aMtb) and in an effort to share that with others she founded the Saskatchewan Adaptive Mountain Bike Club. She works with trail builders and managers to identify obstacles and to ensure accessibility is considered so that everyone can explore the outdoors.
Amanda Powell
Amanda Powell is an outdoor content creator who focuses on accessibility in the outdoors. She has a goal of visiting all the national parks in the US and so far has visited 18. She tries to get out and be active as much as she can with her three year old on the trails hiking or biking. She recently opened up a nonprofit called “ EveryBODY on Trails.” To help those get on trails if that’s with equipment that is often inaccessible for those with disabilities and very expensive and a community of those that love trails with and without disabilities.
Julie Williams
Julie Williams (she/her) is an educator and activist with two decades of experience in policy, outreach, teaching, and qualitative research. As a Special Projects Manager for MonTECH, the Montana assistive technology program, she provides technology, support, and services that improve the quality of life for Montanans with disabilities. She currently serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee at the Rural Institute for Inclusive Committees; is a member of the Montana Independent Living Council Board; is on the board of Montana Women for Peace, Justice, and Equality; and served on the Government Relations Advisory Committee for the Multiple Sclerosis Society from 2018-2020. She earned a PhD in English from the University of New Mexico in 2017. An educator and activist at heart, she has taught at Universities in New Mexico, California, and Montana, organized a drag story hour, and worked with programs for disabled veterans, substance recovery programs, and mutual aid groups bringing health care to uninsured and homeless populations.
Day 1 Panelists
Maayan Ziv
Maayan Ziv is an activist, photographer and entrepreneur. In 2015, she launched AccessNow, a mobile app and website that collects and shares information about the accessibility status of places worldwide. What began as a response to her frustration when trying to navigate inaccessible places, AccessNow soon grew to become a mission-oriented social enterprise. Within just a couple years AccessNow has vocalized a movement for inclusion, inviting people of all abilities to contribute to the platform.
As CEO of AccessNow, Maayan has created a powerful shift in thinking about the importance of accessibility in our world, from accessible technologies to infrastructure, public policy, media and communications. To date, AccessNow has shared accessibility information about over 1 million places in 107 countries around the world.
An influential public speaker who is often in the media, Maayan collaborates with private sector companies as well as government and not-for-profit organizations. She is leading a movement, challenging norms and empowering others to make the future accessible and inclusive for all. Maayan and her work with AccessNow have received numerous awards including: MIT
Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 (2022), Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 (2021), the Governor General’s Innovation Award (2020), WXN Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women (2018), City of Toronto Access Award (2016), David C. Onley Leadership in Accessibility Award (2016).
Heather Hutchison
Heather Hutchison is the Amazon best-selling author of Holding On by Letting Go: A Memoir, and an award-winning singer/songwriter with four albums released to date. Blind since birth and having faced mental health struggles from a young age, she is passionate about educating and connecting with people on disability and mental health through her music, writing and advocacy. She is a content creator with a large and engaged social media following, and a frequent guest on national television and radio programs and renowned podcasts across the globe, singing and speaking to share her message of hope.
Richard “Bear” Peter
Richard “Bear” Peter began playing wheelchair basketball at age 15 after a team came to his school and introduced him to wheelchair sports. He has been using a wheelchair since being injured in a bus accident at four years old.
Peter became a staple of Team Canada since first making the Senior Men’s National Team in 1994. His athletic repertoire includes back-to-back Paralympic gold medals in 2000 and 2004, a Paralympic silver medal in 2008, a third Paralympic gold medal in 2012, and a world championship title in 2006.
He retired from the National Team following the 2012 season. Now curently, is on the National Para Badminton team and enjoys a wide variety of sports at all levels.
Richard is known for his tenacity, dedication and focus. A true teammate and a positive leader on and off the court, Peter makes himself available to provide advice, feedback and mentoring to younger players. An ambassador for the game and for Canada, Peter exemplifies fair play and sportsmanship. He credits intensive training and a commitment to continuously study the game as keys to his success.
That success has been recognized off the basketball court. In 2000, Peter received the Tom Longboat National Award for Aboriginal Male Athlete of the Year. In 2008, he was named Wheelchair Basketball Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year. In 2010, he was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2012, he received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for his outstanding athletic accomplishments.
Day 2
Day 2 Keynote Presenter
Stan Leyenhorst
As an accessibility specialist, Stan provides critical input filtered through the lens of universal design. His collaborative mindset coupled with his innovative skillset offers the requisite insight into achieving inclusive communities.
Stan offers an excellent combination of management skills, sales experience and knowledge on accessibility and universal design. He has spent the last several years focused on accessibility in the built environment, performing assessments, preparing and presenting recommendations, reviewing blueprints, crafting manuals, interfacing with project stakeholders, and educating designers, engineers, and other staff. In addition to his technical experience in this field, Stan brings decades of lived experience and a first-person user perspective. Stan continues to be involved as an expert advisor with respect to accessibility and urban design.
Day 2 Presenters
Laura Brydges
After surviving a traumatic brain injury in 2005, Laura Brydges (M.A.) is a committed proponent of and for the hidden disability community. She has designed and shares a free digital hidden disability symbol on her Hidden Disability Facebook Page. She has conducted two hidden disability surveys, and is the author of a white paper entitled State of Exclusion: how perceptual frameworks and knowledge gaps have failed the Hidden Disability Community. Her efforts have been featured in the Toronto Star, CBC Radio, Accessible Media Inc., iHeartRadio and various blogs. When not championing the hidden disability community, Laura can be found in her art studio, walking her standard poodle, and communing with nature on local trails and in nearby parks.
Lawrence Gunther
Lawrence Gunther is a conservationist, outdoor writer, podcaster, blogger, film maker and TV personality. A life-long outdoor enthusiast, Lawrence has travelled extensively throughout Canada to experience and document the country’s amazing natural resources and diverse peoples. Having earned his master’s in environmental studies from York University, Lawrence went on to establish the charity Blue Fish Canada, dedicated to conserving Canada’s water quality and fish health. Despite being registered blind at age eight, Lawrence has leveraged his visualisation and storytelling skills to open people’s minds to Canada’s underwater worlds. His work has been recognized with numerous awards including the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal.
Hans-Steffen Lindner
Hans-Steffen Lindner is the father of two young boys, and has been married of 12 years to Tammy Baldwin. He has a BSc and a BN, and began working as a nurse in Corner Brook, Newfoundland in 2011.
About five years ago, he experienced a debilitating workplace injury, which left him with a disability. The injury took him away from his job for 5 years, and during that time, he sought new ways to access the wilderness adventures that were no longer physically possible for him. He discovered a passion for piloting drones and taught himself this new skill, as well as how to edit the footage. He began creating videos of his favourite natural places, which he started sharing with his friends and family.
Because of this life changing experience, he began to gain a deeper understanding of the ability of nature to bring us back to a more vibrant state of health, both physically and emotionally.
He has recently returned to work, and currently has a part time position as an RN, while also operating a small freelance drone videography company. Inspired by his personal experiences, his business focuses on helping people overcome physical and emotional challenges by connecting to the natural world through his nature videos.
Shira Standfield
Shira Standfield has a background in landscape architecture, playground design, and park planning with a focus on creating accessible and inclusive outdoor environments. Her passion lies in creating seamless and inherently universally accessible places and experiences for all people. As the Advisor on visitor accessibility and inclusion for Parks Canada, Shira works with colleagues across the country to improve infrastructure, services, and programs for all visitors at national parks and national historic sites. She has over 20 years of experience in the parks and recreation field, and also brings her lived-experience as a long-time wheelchair user and outdoor enthusiast.
John Foster
John Foster (he/him) is a Market Development Specialist with Ontario Parks in the Visitor Experience Unit of the Marketing Section. John is responsible for the Healthy Parks Healthy People Program at Ontario Parks, which is a program aimed at improving access to nature for all Ontarians by creating programs and initiatives that address physical, social, socio-cultural, economic, and other barriers to accessing nature.
Previously, John worked with the Niagara Parks Commission on a trail visitor experience improvement project at the Niagara Glen Nature Reserve. He also worked for Ontario Parks seasonally in a variety of capacities during his undergraduate and graduate degrees. John’s educational background focused on visitor experience in Ontario’s parks and protected areas.
Bigwind Lake Provincial Park Survey
Marie LeBlanc
Marie LeBlanc is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist. Through photography, multimedia projection, short film, performance and wordsmithing she explores themes related to landscape, isolation, beauty, health (mostly Environmental Sensitivities) and nature. Capturing faces, shapes, shadows and reflections with digital and on-camera effects, often superimposing her own reflection, she seeks to embrace the present moment and the ethereal world around her. In the winter months, she travels to the U.S. desert in a cargo van adapted for safe housing to ease the symptoms of Environmental Sensitivities (ES), for which she is a strong advocate.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Human Geography and Sociology from the University of Manitoba. She has participated in the Making Our Mark II Printmaking Mentorship Program at Martha Street Studio, the Artist In Residency Program at Artbeat Studio and the Art Salon Program at Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba (AANM). Her story and artwork have been featured in interviews, articles and newsletters throughout Western Canada, the US, and MCS Aware (UK). She was recently awarded Microgrants from Mentoring Artists for Women’s Artand AANM for the completion of Overdressed.
Kate Zealand
Kate Zealand (she/her) is the Community Engagement and Inclusion Specialist at BC Parks. In her role she focuses on provincial strategies, initiatives, and projects to support inclusion and accessibility in B.C.’s provincial parks. Most recently, Kate has supported the launch of the BC Parks Commitment to Inclusion, a renewed commitment to making B.C.’s provincial parks welcoming and meaningfully accessible to all. With the launch of the commitment, Kate’s work focuses on both supporting the concrete actions BC Parks is taking to support inclusion and accessibility and the long-term and systemic shift of implementing the vision of the commitment. Kate is passionate about learning directly from those with lived experiences and finding ways to amplify the voices of those who experience barriers to accessing the outdoors to create learning opportunities for visitors and staff.
Day 2 Panelists
Claire DeLong
Claire (she/her) has a deep appreciation and gratitude for nature. She currently works as a Project Officer for the Minister’s Round Table on Parks Canada. Her previous roles with Parks Canada have included: Public Outreach Education Manager, Learn-to Camp Coordinator, Visitor Experience Product Development Officer, and Visitor Services Team Leader. Claire feels strongly that the mental and physical benefits of time spent in nature should be enjoyed by all. She believes in utilizing the power of collaboration to find innovative and creative solutions to improve access to natural spaces.
Carinna Kenigsberg
Carinna is the Director of Programs and Impact at Power To Be. Power To Be is a charity in Victoria and Vancouver that removes barriers for people living with challenges and different abilities and supports people to access nature through recreation, health and wellness and community collaborations. Carinna has a degree in Child and Youth Care and leads with an ability-centered approach. She practices inclusivity from the way she uniquely connects to individuals, to seeing linkages and opportunities that can build on people’s strengths. Carinna understands the strategic benefit of partnerships and how rich an experience can be when it is done through the collaboration. She has worked closely with different parks sectors and other like minded organizations to create more access to the outdoors and align on practices to live by a universal approach. It is with this mindset and philosophy that Carinna aims to be a steward for people, the natural environment and community.
Rory Moorhead
Rory is the Discover Parks Manager at the BC Parks Foundation. Rory believes that time outside in parks is good for the mind and body and is set on helping as many people experience it for themselves as possible. Working BC Parks, Rory heads up the team of Discover Parks Ambassadors who offer interpretive programs for visitors throughout British Columbia’s Provincial Park system. Rory has been managing interpretive programs in the outdoors for over 15 years, with a particular focus on experiential education, environmental stewardship, responsible recreation and creating meaningful connections to nature.
Taylor Sands
Taylor (she/her) is the Manager of Training & Community Engagement at Canucks Autism Network and has worked for Parks Canada at Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse, Fort Langley and in Vancouver from 2015-2019. She oversees a team who coordinates autism trainings for CAN staff and community organisations and creates accessibility resources. Coming from a parks background, Taylor is passionate about reducing barriers for Autistic people to enjoy nature and historic sites.
Canucks Autism Network & BC Parks’ Camping 101 Video
Day 3
Day 3 Keynote Presenter
Sonya Wilson
Sonya is a seasoned teacher, advocate, artist, climber, and is also a member of the Deaf community where she currently resides in Los Angeles, Ca. Sonya has always been a wild child of the 70’s, grew up on the family ranch in Las Vegas with Red Rock Canyon nearby. She attended Azusa Pacific University earning a BA and MA degree. At college, she took classes which focused on outdoor recreational activities such as rock climbing, hiking, mountaineering, where her passion for the outdoors grew.
Over the years, she has completed various outdoor courses via REI, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), PCGI and Red Rock Rendezvous (RRR). She started a Deaf climbing group at RRR in Las Vegas where she also recruited and trained ASL Outdoor Adventure Interpreters (OAIs) to create a more accessible outdoor space for Deaf community. She also hosts the annual ASL Climb and Camp weekends in Joshua Tree, CA for the past 5 years. It grows every year and took on a life of its own!
Sonya’s vision is to elevate and connect the outdoors, recreation industry and the Deaf community. This helps raise awareness on what true access, equality and inclusion looks like. It is important to create a culture where these key components are a given and not an afterthought.
To learn more follow Sonya on Instagram @deafclimber
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Day 3 Presenters
Mikhaila Carr
Mikhaila (she/her) is an undergraduate student currently pursuing her Bachelor of Planning at the University of Northern British Columbia. Mikhaila became involved with goals of improving access and inclusion in parks through her position as a research assistant with the Nature for All team. The partnership includes dedicated academics, non-profits, tourism sectors, and government that seeks collaboration to document and improve conditions to enable access to outdoor recreation and nature based tourism spaces. Her enthusiasm for the outdoors and accessibility stems from experiencing the co-benefits of her nature interactions. She envisions an outdoors that enables her to create memories, social bonds, and opportunities for healing with each of her friends and family members irrespective of ability, age, gender, or race.
Isabelle Ducharme
Isabelle Ducharme, President of the Board of Directors of Kéroul, has been involved in social integration activities for people with disabilities for over twenty years.
Her personal experience of living with a spinal cord injury since her car accident in 1988, combined with her master’s degree in tourism management and planning at UQAM university in Montreal, give her a unique perspective on the barriers faced by tourists with disabilities and on solutions to be implemented to promote tourism for all.
Mark Groulx
Mark Groulx is an Associate Professor in UNBC’s School of Planning and Sustainability and a Registered Professional Planner. Mark’s research focuses broadly on sustainable, resilient, and inclusive communities, and specifically on the importance of community engagement and placemaking in effective collaborative planning. Mark is currently leading the SSHRC funded Nature for All project. The Nature for All project includes a diverse network of academic, tourism sector, not for profit, and government partners collaborating in the development and use of new tools to document the state of accessibility in nature-based tourism and recreation spaces.
Heather Lamb
Heather Lamb is a social worker with Spinal Cord Injury BC, based in Prince George. In addition to her direct work with clients, she is also the InfoLine Team Lead and part of the Access BC Team. She sits on a number of disability and accessibility committees at the national, provincial, and local levels.
Jamie McCulloch
Born in the UK and now a proud Canadian Citizen, Jamie resides in Canmore, Alberta. His first experience of adaptive sport and recreation was when teaching his sister, Claire, to ski. Following this, he worked as a ski instructor in Andorra and spent summers working as a care worker for adults with neurodivergencies. From that moment on, he knew the path his future was to take.
The Winter of 2001/02 saw Jamie come to Canada, where he has spent his time working for Sunshine Village as a ski instructor. At the same time, he saw a gap in the ski industry lesson opportunities offered and started to develop and then coordinator the Sunshine Village Adaptive Ski and Ride Program. For 6 years he lived a continuous Winter spending the Canadian Summer months in New Zealand, furthering his adaptive experience by working for Disabled Snowsports. Here, while working as an adaptive trainer, instructor, and coach, he met an incredible community of individuals.
His enthusiasm, passion and experience for adaptive sport and recreation lead him to co-found Rocky Mountain Adaptive, where he works in the position of Executive Director, developing the organization, advocating for adaptive sport and recreation, and still making time for his main passion – working hands on with individuals of amazing abilities.
Philip Oligny
As the founder of Kartus, I’ve dedicated myself to providing a simple yet effective solution for outdoor accessibility for people with disabilities. In conjunction with my ongoing role at Kartus, I serve as a lecturer in design at Université Laval, an experience that deepens my understanding of the human aspects in product development. This unique intersection of roles allows me to infuse technical prowess with empathy and inclusivity, central to Kartus’s mission. In addition, I bring my expertise to various non-profit organizations as a board member and have recently extended my passion for inclusivity by becoming a paraclimb instructor. Honored as a ‘Young Philanthropist’ by my university, my mission is to champion the cause of accessibility, especially outdoors, transforming it from a privilege to a fundamental right for all.
Craig Paulson
Craig Paulson runs the Capital Infrastructure program for the BC Parks in the northwest corner of the province and has been working on accessibility-related park upgrades since 2009. Craig has worked on universal design standards, park audits, and accessibility research, but is most passionate about connecting with people at work or at play.
Glenys SnowDymond
Glenys is a naturalist, interpreter and pioneering advocate for accessible parks. A polio survivor raised in and around Jasper National Park, Glenys has been pushing boundaries in accessing natural spaces her whole life.
As a pioneer in natural environment access, to accommodate her disability and goal to reach the Walcott Quarry Burgess Shale fossil beds in Yoho National Park, in the mid-1990’s while working with Parks Canada she rode a horse into the quarry. This is a restricted area and it was the first time a horse had been allowed into the quarry since Walcott’s wife had ridden there in the early 1900’s.
Glenys has audited scores of park sites and when she is not out enjoying nature, she spends her time working on inclusive community development projects. She has RHFAC certification and over 40 year’s-experience working in the field of universal access / barrier free design.
Day 3 Panelists
Kristen Habermehl
Kristen is the owner of Atlantic Accessibility and brings both passion and balance, with advocacy for inclusion and eighteen years of business management, to the team. As one of the lead instructors nationally for the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification, as well as a highly sought-after accessibility assessor, she brings energy to both the learning and the application of assessments with clients such as Parks Canada, Dalhousie University, McInnes Cooper, Deloitte, Huskey Energy, Build Nova Scotia, Halifax International Airport, and many more.
Trisha Kaplan
As the Director of Trail Inclusion Initiatives at Trans Canada Trail, I lead the organization’s vision for a more inclusive trail. I develop national accessibility initiatives, including most recently the development of Guidelines for Planning and Designing All Persons Trails, and I work with all levels of government and community organizations to improve trail accessibility. My work and passion have been informed by personal experience, relationships, and formal education, with the goal of making trails – and the trail sector—accessible, inclusive, and enjoyable for everyone.
Noah Papatsie
Noah Papatsie was born and raised in Iqaluit Nunavut’s Capital with 7 sisters and now father of 5, three of which whom are adopted. He worked with Inuit Broadcasting Corporation as a technical Producer and became Executive Producer during after many years in service.
Noah had an accident during work which left him blind but that did not stop him going after the accident and during recovery process.
Over the years, he became councillor for city of Iqaluit 2013/15. 2017-present is the chair for Disability Advisory Committee. He was the President 2005/2015/2017 for CACL (Canadian Association for Community Living) now known as Inclusion Canada.
Cybele Sack
Cybele Sack is a consultant with a focus on inclusive design, digital accessibility, and social transformation. She’s an award-winning coach for social innovation hackathons and entrepreneurship in Canada; she has coached diverse teams with multiple events and organizations.
She is a co-author of and invited expert with the next generation of digital accessibility standards with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). She led accessible co-designs with the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCADU. She’s a co-author of a chapter in the next core textbook for Canadian Occupational Therapists. She produces and moderates panels addressing ableism in health care for UBC’s Inclusive Campus and is a researcher on a national project on redesigning equitable post-secondary education.
She began her career as an interpreter at Point Pelee National Park and continued as a researcher with Parks Canada’s national headquarters. Her interest in accessibility at national parks was sparked by her undergraduate thesis in trail accessibility and universal design.
She has been published in the Globe and Mail, New York Times, NOW Magazine, CTV News, CBC News and TVOntario.
