Kathryn Holloway
Encyclopedia
Kathryn Holloway (born October 18, 1968 in Montreal, Quebec
) is a Canadian
political activist, journalist, and entrepreneur
, best known for her work in the Canadian Green
and Ontario Liberal
parties, and for her private and public-sector work on climate change
, participatory democracy
, and free speech.
She is currently Executive Director of the Toronto-based non-governmental organization
Element Village.
She was the candidate for the Liberal Party of Ontario in the Ontario general election, 2007
in the Toronto
riding of Trinity-Spadina
,. She was also the spokesperson for Liberals for MMP, a group supporting voting yes to a referendum concerning proportional representation in the Ontario electoral reform referendum, 2007
.
Prior to her private and public sector work in energy conservation, she held senior executive and consulting positions in both the high-tech and advertising worlds, as a director for Boston-based CMGI
, and a Vice-President at MBS Ltd. of the Grey Global Group
. From 1994 to 1996 she was featured on The Discovery Channel as an Internet journalist on the segment "Kate's Page", which she wrote and performed.
In 2003 she was a regular columnist for Relix Magazine, writing about music and culture. In 2004, she was a regular contributor to Building and Construction Trades Today, and contributed features on architectural conversions of Toronto heritage buildings.
She is the sister of comedienne and radio personality Maureen Holloway
, and the first cousin of Irish Zapatista economist John Holloway
. She holds two degrees from the University of Toronto, one in Celtic Studies
and the other, an MBA in Finance from the Rotman School of Management
.
She is mother to Samuel Wright, born November 22, 1990.
cooperative
and community
projects. Element Village is funded by the Canadian Cooperatives Secretariat and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.
In 2005 she participated with the Civic Efficiency Group on a submission on infrastructural capital
to Canadian Finance Minister
Ralph Goodale
's 2005 Green Budget Coalition, advocating more sustainable, modular, green urban planning.
She is a past delegate to the United Nations Environment Programme
Sustainable Energy Finance Roundtable in New York, and is a past NGO observer to the 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal
. There, she successfully lobbied to ensure that the World Mayors and Municipal Leaders Declaration on Climate Change would include wording protecting women, youth and communities. She argued for inclusion in the Declaration of
She is a founding member of BALLE Canada, and was profiled in the 2007 peak oil documentary Escape From Suburbia as an urban sustainability activist. She also participates with the Toronto City Summit Alliance on the Green Best Practices and Indicators working group.
(GPC) during the 2004 election
. She also ran as a parachute candidate against incumbent Liberal Party
Member of Parliament Derek Lee in the riding of Scarborough-Rouge River.
Funded with speculative loans from Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes, the Green Party ran candidates in all ridings in the 2004 election
. This entitled them to claim millions of dollars in federal funding under the recently passed Bill C-24. At the subsequent Green Party of Canada leadership convention in 2004, Holloway was elected to the party's national executive (Federal Council) as Fundraising Chair with 91% of the vote, and subsequently sat on three financial Committees of Council.
While on Council she co-founded the Green Party Women's Caucus and the Green High Riding School, a candidate organizing school assisting provincial candidates and riding associations with fundraising, policy development, and organizing.
In January 2005, Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris
called for an in camera
session of Federal Council and moved a motion to remove Kathryn Holloway from the GPC council, resulting in Holloway's suspension. No reason was provided to her, and she was refused a copy of the meeting minutes, although she requested that they be published to the membership. She subsequently published internal Council emails herself showing her objection to a suggested incorporation of the party's finances (the GPC Fund) that she alleged left them out of the Party's democratic control. In June 2005, Holloway was acclaimed by her riding association as the candidate for the GPC in Toronto Centre
. However, her nomination was suddenly blocked without explanation by party organizers. Stating frustration, Holloway resigned from the Green Party Council and from her Toronto Centre nomination. Within the next week several other prominent national executive members and candidates followed suit, accusing Harris
of mismanaging the Party.
Holloway returned to active participation in the GPC in May 2006 as a key supporter of leadership candidate Elizabeth May
, hosting a Toronto meet-and-greet for May's campaign. On August 27, 2006, despite a very active campaign against her by Harris and Crookes, Holloway was elected again to GPC Council, this time as Chief Agent, with 69% of the vote. In October 2006 the GPC fully rescinded Holloway's 2005 suspension and all other previous sanctions against former GPC Federal Councillors. Crookes however had in the meantime filed numerous lawsuits against his critics within the party, some of whom accused him of engaging in libel chill. Holloway was also served with a lawsuit by Crookes, simply for facilitating online forums
or wiki
s where such criticisms of Crookes had taken place. With Yahoo and PBwiki
, Holloway filed a combination of countersuits and jurisdictional challenges against Crookes. With various other defendants, she also set up a defense fund in 2007 to protect free political speech on the Internet.
Holloway had meanwhile moved on politically. On December 8, 2006, she resigned from the Green Party to join the Liberal Party. Her resignation letter stated that core values between the two parties were not dissimilar, and that she intended to support Toronto Liberals in the wake of Stéphane Dion
's election as Liberal Party of Canada
Leader.
On August 10, 2007, Holloway was appointed by Premier Dalton McGuinty
as the Ontario Liberal candidate for the 2007 provincial election in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. She finished in second place behind NDP incumbent Rosario Marchese
with 14,170 votes, or 32% of the popular vote, cutting Marchese's winning margin by over 2,000 votes from the previous election. http://www.thestar.com/OntarioElection/article/265828
"I’ll be back in 2011 and we’ll take this riding. We had a late start — I was the last (Liberal) candidate nominated in Toronto — but great momentum over the last week. This was an 11th hour run but we still made a big impact. We narrowed the gap from last time. Next time, we can bring it home," said Holloway.
On June 28, 2010, Holloway appeared on the current affairs program The Agenda
with Steve Paikin
for a special episode concerning brutality during the G20 summit held recently in Toronto. Holloway's son, a bystander, had been detained for 24 hours during the summit without being charged with anything. On the program, Holloway spoke out strongly against the abrogation of civil liberties during the G20.
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
) is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
political activist, journalist, and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, best known for her work in the Canadian Green
Green Party of Canada
The Green Party of Canada is a Canadian federal political party founded in 1983 with 10,000–12,000 registered members as of October 2008. The Greens advance a broad multi-issue political platform that reflects its core values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy and...
and Ontario Liberal
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
parties, and for her private and public-sector work on climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, participatory democracy
Participatory democracy
Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...
, and free speech.
She is currently Executive Director of the Toronto-based non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
Element Village.
She was the candidate for the Liberal Party of Ontario in the Ontario general election, 2007
Ontario general election, 2007
The Ontario general election of 2007 was held on October 10, 2007 to elect members of the 39th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty won the election with a majority government, winning 71 out of a possible 107 seats with 42.2% of the popular...
in the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
riding of Trinity-Spadina
Trinity—Spadina (provincial electoral district)
Trinity—Spadina is a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 1999....
,. She was also the spokesperson for Liberals for MMP, a group supporting voting yes to a referendum concerning proportional representation in the Ontario electoral reform referendum, 2007
Ontario electoral reform referendum, 2007
An Ontario electoral reform referendum was held on October 10, 2007, in an attempt to establish a mixed member proportional representation system for elections to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...
.
Background
Holloway has founded, managed or directed several Toronto environmental startups and non-profit associations. She is on the Steering Committee of Green Enterprise Toronto and is a founding member of the Toronto Women's Environmental Alliance. In 2005 she was a co-founder of renewable energy firm Village Technologies. More recently she was employed by Toronto energy management firm Mann Engineering as Director of Business Development. In May, 2007, she left Mann Engineering to be CFO, and ultimately President and CEO, of Carbonzero.Prior to her private and public sector work in energy conservation, she held senior executive and consulting positions in both the high-tech and advertising worlds, as a director for Boston-based CMGI
CMGI
ModusLink Global Solutions, formerly CMGI Inc., is an American technology and venture capital company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company supplies a range of internet and communications services, mostly to computer companies, its biggest customer being Hewlett-Packard Company...
, and a Vice-President at MBS Ltd. of the Grey Global Group
Grey Global Group
Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency, whose slogan is providing solutions - with headquarters in New York City, and 432 offices in 96 countries, operating in 154 cities — organized into four geographical units: North America; Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin...
. From 1994 to 1996 she was featured on The Discovery Channel as an Internet journalist on the segment "Kate's Page", which she wrote and performed.
In 2003 she was a regular columnist for Relix Magazine, writing about music and culture. In 2004, she was a regular contributor to Building and Construction Trades Today, and contributed features on architectural conversions of Toronto heritage buildings.
She is the sister of comedienne and radio personality Maureen Holloway
Maureen Holloway
Maureen Holloway is a Canadian radio personality, entertainer and comedian that is best known for her radio segments The Last Word. Holloway broadcasts live, weekday mornings, in consecutive segments with the hosts of Canadian morning shows in various cities.-Personal life:Holloway, a mother of...
, and the first cousin of Irish Zapatista economist John Holloway
John Holloway (economist)
John Holloway is a lawyer, Marxist-oriented sociologist and philosopher, whose work is closely associated with the Zapatista movement in Mexico, his home since 1991. It has also been taken up by some intellectuals associated with the piqueteros in Argentina; Abahlali baseMjondolo movement in South...
. She holds two degrees from the University of Toronto, one in Celtic Studies
Celtic Studies
Celtic studies is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to a Celtic people. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct...
and the other, an MBA in Finance from the Rotman School of Management
Rotman School of Management
The Joseph L. Rotman School of Management commonly known as Rotman School of Management is the University of Toronto's business school, located in St. George Street in Downtown Toronto. The school, named after Joseph L...
.
She is mother to Samuel Wright, born November 22, 1990.
NGO work
Since 2004 she has been Executive Director of Element Village, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the stimulation, funding and support of sustainable urbanUrban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
and community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
projects. Element Village is funded by the Canadian Cooperatives Secretariat and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.
In 2005 she participated with the Civic Efficiency Group on a submission on infrastructural capital
Infrastructural capital
Public capital is the aggregate body of government-owned assets that are used as the means for private productivity. Such assets span a wide range including: large components such as highways, airports, roads, transit systems, and railways; local, municipal components such as public education,...
to Canadian Finance Minister
Minister of Finance (Canada)
The Minister of Finance is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible each year for presenting the federal government's budget...
Ralph Goodale
Ralph Goodale
Ralph Edward Goodale, PC, MP was Canada's Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2006 and continues to be a Liberal Member of Parliament...
's 2005 Green Budget Coalition, advocating more sustainable, modular, green urban planning.
She is a past delegate to the United Nations Environment Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its...
Sustainable Energy Finance Roundtable in New York, and is a past NGO observer to the 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. There, she successfully lobbied to ensure that the World Mayors and Municipal Leaders Declaration on Climate Change would include wording protecting women, youth and communities. She argued for inclusion in the Declaration of
- calls for reform in how the IMF and the World Bank measure productivity
- endorsement of the carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets set by the 2005 International Youth Declaration
- increased partnership between municipalities and NGOs and community organizations
She is a founding member of BALLE Canada, and was profiled in the 2007 peak oil documentary Escape From Suburbia as an urban sustainability activist. She also participates with the Toronto City Summit Alliance on the Green Best Practices and Indicators working group.
Political life
Holloway was a staff organizer for the Green Party of CanadaGreen Party of Canada
The Green Party of Canada is a Canadian federal political party founded in 1983 with 10,000–12,000 registered members as of October 2008. The Greens advance a broad multi-issue political platform that reflects its core values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy and...
(GPC) during the 2004 election
Canadian federal election, 2004
The Canadian federal election, 2004 , was held on June 28, 2004 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 38th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections...
. She also ran as a parachute candidate against incumbent Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
Member of Parliament Derek Lee in the riding of Scarborough-Rouge River.
Funded with speculative loans from Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes, the Green Party ran candidates in all ridings in the 2004 election
Canadian federal election, 2004
The Canadian federal election, 2004 , was held on June 28, 2004 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 38th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections...
. This entitled them to claim millions of dollars in federal funding under the recently passed Bill C-24. At the subsequent Green Party of Canada leadership convention in 2004, Holloway was elected to the party's national executive (Federal Council) as Fundraising Chair with 91% of the vote, and subsequently sat on three financial Committees of Council.
While on Council she co-founded the Green Party Women's Caucus and the Green High Riding School, a candidate organizing school assisting provincial candidates and riding associations with fundraising, policy development, and organizing.
In January 2005, Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris
Jim Harris (politician)
James R. M. "Jim" Harris is a Canadian author, environmentalist, and politician. He was leader of the Green Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006, when he was succeeded by Elizabeth May.-Early life and Green activism:...
called for an in camera
In camera
In camera is a legal term meaning "in private". It is also sometimes termed in chambers or in curia.In camera describes court cases that the public and press are not admitted to...
session of Federal Council and moved a motion to remove Kathryn Holloway from the GPC council, resulting in Holloway's suspension. No reason was provided to her, and she was refused a copy of the meeting minutes, although she requested that they be published to the membership. She subsequently published internal Council emails herself showing her objection to a suggested incorporation of the party's finances (the GPC Fund) that she alleged left them out of the Party's democratic control. In June 2005, Holloway was acclaimed by her riding association as the candidate for the GPC in Toronto Centre
Toronto Centre
Toronto Centre is a federal electoral district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1872 to 1925, and since 1935, under the names Centre Toronto , Toronto Centre , Rosedale and Toronto Centre—Rosedale .Toronto Centre covers the heart of...
. However, her nomination was suddenly blocked without explanation by party organizers. Stating frustration, Holloway resigned from the Green Party Council and from her Toronto Centre nomination. Within the next week several other prominent national executive members and candidates followed suit, accusing Harris
Jim Harris (politician)
James R. M. "Jim" Harris is a Canadian author, environmentalist, and politician. He was leader of the Green Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006, when he was succeeded by Elizabeth May.-Early life and Green activism:...
of mismanaging the Party.
Holloway returned to active participation in the GPC in May 2006 as a key supporter of leadership candidate Elizabeth May
Elizabeth May
Elizabeth Evans May, OC, MP is an American-born Canadian Member of Parliament, environmentalist, writer, activist, lawyer, and the leader of the Green Party of Canada. She was the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada from 1989 to 2006. She became a Canadian citizen in 1978.May's...
, hosting a Toronto meet-and-greet for May's campaign. On August 27, 2006, despite a very active campaign against her by Harris and Crookes, Holloway was elected again to GPC Council, this time as Chief Agent, with 69% of the vote. In October 2006 the GPC fully rescinded Holloway's 2005 suspension and all other previous sanctions against former GPC Federal Councillors. Crookes however had in the meantime filed numerous lawsuits against his critics within the party, some of whom accused him of engaging in libel chill. Holloway was also served with a lawsuit by Crookes, simply for facilitating online forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
or wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s where such criticisms of Crookes had taken place. With Yahoo and PBwiki
PBwiki
PBworks is a commercial real-time collaborative editing system created by David Weekly, with Ramit Sethi and Nathan Schmidt joining shortly thereafter as co-founders. Based in San Mateo, California, the company's original name stems from their belief that "making a wiki is as easy as making a...
, Holloway filed a combination of countersuits and jurisdictional challenges against Crookes. With various other defendants, she also set up a defense fund in 2007 to protect free political speech on the Internet.
Holloway had meanwhile moved on politically. On December 8, 2006, she resigned from the Green Party to join the Liberal Party. Her resignation letter stated that core values between the two parties were not dissimilar, and that she intended to support Toronto Liberals in the wake of Stéphane Dion
Stéphane Dion
Stéphane Maurice Dion, PC, MP is a Canadian politician who has been the Member of Parliament for the riding of Saint-Laurent–Cartierville in Montreal since 1996. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons from 2006 to 2008...
's election as Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
Leader.
On August 10, 2007, Holloway was appointed by Premier Dalton McGuinty
Dalton McGuinty
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP is a Canadian lawyer, politician and, since October 23, 2003, the 24th and current Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario....
as the Ontario Liberal candidate for the 2007 provincial election in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. She finished in second place behind NDP incumbent Rosario Marchese
Rosario Marchese
Rosario Marchese is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the downtown Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina for the New Democratic Party of Ontario.-Background:...
with 14,170 votes, or 32% of the popular vote, cutting Marchese's winning margin by over 2,000 votes from the previous election. http://www.thestar.com/OntarioElection/article/265828
"I’ll be back in 2011 and we’ll take this riding. We had a late start — I was the last (Liberal) candidate nominated in Toronto — but great momentum over the last week. This was an 11th hour run but we still made a big impact. We narrowed the gap from last time. Next time, we can bring it home," said Holloway.
On June 28, 2010, Holloway appeared on the current affairs program The Agenda
The Agenda
The Agenda with Steve Paikin is the flagship current affairs program of TVOntario, Ontario’s public broadcaster. The show practises what anchor and senior editor Steve Paikin calls "long-form" journalism. Each hour-long program tackles no more than two topics, and often only one...
with Steve Paikin
Steve Paikin
Steve Paikin is a Canadian journalist, author, and documentary producer at TVOntario . He is currently anchor and senior editor of TVO's flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin, and previously hosted TVO's Studio 2 and Diplomatic Immunity.A native of Hamilton, Ontario,...
for a special episode concerning brutality during the G20 summit held recently in Toronto. Holloway's son, a bystander, had been detained for 24 hours during the summit without being charged with anything. On the program, Holloway spoke out strongly against the abrogation of civil liberties during the G20.