Watershed Moments: Critical conversations on Canada’s freshwater future

Expect humour, visuals, hands‑on ideas, and practical tools you can use right away. The session includes interactive moments and comes with a follow‑up classroom resource package to support meaningful water learning.

Featuring:

Annabel Slaight is a Canadian media pioneer and Order of Canada recipient who reaches over 60 million families and inspires children to care for the planet. As founder of ClearWater Futures Foundation, an educational charity, she originated the Future Chicken concept with children at the ClearWater Farm eco-innovation learning hub.

Susan Walmer is the chief executive officer of the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust. Susan is deeply committed to community engagement and environmental stewardship. Her lifelong connection to nature began with childhood camping trips across Canada and evolved into civic leadership in the 1990s, when she helped advocate for the long-term protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Jill Hotchkiss leads audience growth and digital expansion for Future Chicken and the Planet Protectors, which translates climate storytelling into kid-first, purpose-driven entertainment. Jill specializes in connecting audiences to character-driven worlds with heart and impact.

Special guest: Teen activist Audrey Ma

Speakers will share projects, methods, and outcomes, showing how targeted interventions improve water quality, biodiversity, and communities. Learn what worked, what changed on the ground, and how success was measured.

Featuring:

Jill Crosthwaite is the acting program director for Southwestern Ontario at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, overseeing stewardship and securement in southwestern Ontario. Jill previously coordinated the restoration of over 115 ha of former agricultural land, including 27 ha of wetlands.

Catherine Paquette is the specialist, freshwater ecosystems with WWF-Canada. She works on WWF-Canada’s restoration efforts in Ontario and Quebec, partnering with organizations and communities to improve habitat biodiversity. 

Norman Allard Jr. is the community planner for Lower Kootenay Band and has been managing environmental restoration for over 10 years. Their wetland restoration project is one of the largest in Canada. They physically restore an average of 11 ha of wetlands per year, in addition to restoring large floodplain basin functionality across the valley area.
 

Featuring:

Dr. Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle is the co-director of the Northern Boreal Mountains Program based in Whitehorse, Yukon, and an adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan. She works closely with First Nations communities, governments, and other partners throughout Yukon to collaborate on meaningful research projects and land-use planning initiatives that reflect Indigenous and environmental values.

Dr. Constance O’Connor is the director of the Ontario Northern Boreal program with WCS Canada and an Adjunct Professor at Lakehead University and Laurentian University. She is a freshwater ecologist and conservation biologist dedicated to finding conservation solutions for the globally important freshwater ecosystems of Canada’s boreal forests—and the people and wildlife that rely on them.

Join Thomas Saleh, policy advisor, data and technology at the International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA); Katherine Balpataky, executive director at DataStream; and Jim Young, chief data officer at the Canada Water Agency, to discuss how we can collaborate to unleash the power of community water monitoring and open data. The webinar will include a Q&A opportunity.