Our Team

Madeline Weld, B.Sc. (Zoology, University of Guelph), M.S. and Ph.D. (Physiology, Louisiana State University), has been with PIC since its inception in 1992 and its President since 1995. She was a board member of Planned Parenthood Ottawa from 1995 to 1995 and a Director of Canadian Humanist Publications from 2012 to 2022, where she served as an editor of its quarterly magazine, Humanist Perspectives. Madeline is retired from Health Canada.

Robert grew up in Sandy Hill Ottawa, where he studied at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. He worked at Agriculture Canada as technologist, and later accepted the position of Laboratory Manager in biotechnology laboratories at the University of Montreal and the University of Guelph. After retirement, while he ran a reusable bag manufacturing company, in 1996 he founded the Association du recyclage de Val-des-Monts, one of many grass roots organizations that propelled recycling in the province of Québec. He has been member of PIC since the days it operated under the name Global Population Concerns Ottawa. He is an avid sailor (author of Sailor Without a Boat), cyclist and YouTuber.

Ian was born in 1941, in Ottawa, Canada and has lived there all his life. Over the years he came to endorse the eight points of Deep Ecology and Deep Green thinking. Ecocentrism, which holds that the Earth is the matrix which birthed us and therefore is the primary entity, followed. This philosophy understands that humanity is in tremendous overshoot and that a voluntary correction of this catastrophe is much preferable to Nature’s way. Thus, it is necessary to reduce population, consumption, and the technological basis of production.

A more detailed bio is available at https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/v01sa-09.pdf

Jo grew up in the Yukon, Alberta, Germany and in Ontario where she taught in the Upper Canada School Board. She also travelled with her family on a teaching exchange in England, followed by a sabbatical year island hopping in the South Pacific. Since retiring Jo has volunteered with NGOs in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tanzania and Madagascar in all of which she witnessed the harm that overpopulation was doing to the environment and to individuals, families, communities and the countries with which she interacted. As a result, she believes passionately that women world- wide deserve the same reproductive rights and choices as are available to women in Canada, “no more, no less.”

Jo is a long-time, loyal member of PIC. She has assisted in “hands on”, special projects, including research relating to website updating and by volunteering in schools with talks on the environment, especially trees. Jo has lived on a 160-year-old farm, near Ottawa, for 46 years. Jo has had two children of her own and fostered or adopted 14 others.

Sheila Ayala is a long-time Canadian Humanists member, serving for several years as its Senior Administrator until 2005. She worked on the Charter of Rights & Freedoms petition, handled Humanist media relations, and campaigned against Sharia law in Ontario. She also served on Board of Secular Ontario. PIC duties include maintaining membership data and correspondence, and, as Treasurer, recording/managing finances.

Osamu Wakabayashi, B.A. Honours, Commerce, University of Hakodate, Japan. A marketing consultant and web designer, he has worked with businesses, governments and nonprofits to “promote a more sustainable world”. At Natural Resources Canada, he travelled internationally to advance sustainable building and community development. In 2007, he was project leader demonstrating the first Net Zero Energy home in Japan. He owns a design company (www.zenideas.ca) that strives for “smart, bold and enduring visual identity and communications” with emphasis on simplicity to create visual media components that communicate to best effect.