Board of Directors
Natasha Bakht is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. Her teaching, research, and publications focus on criminal law, family law, and human rights. From 2020 to 2024, she held the Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession. Called to the Bar of Ontario in 2003, she completed her LL.M. at New York University School of Law as a Global Hauser Scholar and served as a law clerk to Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. She has been actively engaged in litigation and public advocacy through her work with the National Association of Women and the Law and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and has contributed to judicial education in Canada on issues relating to religion, gender, culture, equality, and diversity. Natasha is also an award-winning dancer and choreographer. Trained in Bharata Natyam, she specializes in Indian contemporary dance. She has been nominated twice for Dora Awards for outstanding choreography (2003 and 2010), received the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in 2008, and was a finalist for the Ottawa Arts Council’s Mid-Career Artist Award (2018) and the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize (2021).
George Brown is a lawyer, urbanist and Integral Associate Coach. He is Principal of Integral North. Prior to this, George spent nine years as President of the Ottawa Community Loan Fund, (OCLF) as well as 9 years as a City and Regional Councillor in Ottawa. As a Councillor, he served as Chair of the City’s Economic Affairs Committee and the Region’s Environmental Services Committee. He has a Master’s of Science Degree in Community Economic Development from New Hampshire College’s Graduate School of Business (now Southern New Hampshire University) and an LLB/JD degree from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. He was called to the Bar in Ontario in September 2003. George is a Part-Time Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. He is Chair of United Way Ottawa’s Community Impact Cabinet and a Member of it’s Board of Directors.
Duff Conacher, Coordinator of DEN, LLB/JD and PhD in Law, is an internationally recognized leader in the area of democratic reform and government accountability. He is a former Ralph Nader’s Raider and he has worked as a researcher, community organizer and educator, legal intern and consultant. A graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, he has a long-standing interest in democratic process and corporate responsibility issues. He was the main co-founder of Democracy Watch in 1993 and has led the organization since then to win more than 200 changes to federal and provincial laws (more changes than any other organization in Canada). He was the coordinator from 2011 to 2013 of the national educational charity Your Canada, Your Constitution (YCYC). He was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law from 2011 to 2014 and a Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies from 2014 to 2016, and was then a Part-time Professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies, and the Faculty of Law during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. As a PhD student at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, he was awarded a Vanier Canada Scholarship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 2018, and a Bertram Scholarship by the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research (CFGR) in 2017.
He also heads the firm GoodOrg.ca Consulting which provides advice and services to governments, businesses and citizen organizations in the areas of good governance, ethics, responsibility, communications, stakeholder and public relations. His past work includes organizing the first chapter of Quebec PIRG (Quebec Public Interest Research Group) at McGill University in 1988, serving as a member of the Board of Directors of University of Toronto and Ontario PIRG from 1988 to 1991, and playing a key support role in organizing PIRG chapters at four other universities in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Alberta between 1988 and 2002. He is is also co-author, with Ralph Nader and Nadia Milleron, of Canada firsts: Ralph Nader’s Salute to Canada and Canadian Achievement which spent six months on Canadian best-seller lists in 1993 and was the #1 best-seller for five weeks, and author of the best-selling More Canada Firsts: Another Collection of Canadian Firsts and Foremosts in the World (1999).
Anjali Helferty is Executive Director of the Canadian Association Of Physicians For The Environment (CAPE). She has a Masters from The New School in organizational change management, and a PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto focused on settler solidarity with Indigenous peoples. She began her career in climate activism over 20 years ago with youth climate organizing in Canada and the United States. Anjali's advocacy today focuses on strengthening understanding of the deep connection between human health and safety and a healthy environment.
In memory of David Shulman
David was Co-founder of Democracy Education Network (DEN) and DEN's Coordinator and a Board member from 1993 to 2026. In addition to his work with DEN, David was the former president of the Ontario Community Education Association. He wrote and spoke extensively on citizen participation and citizenship education in Canada and the United States. He also worked with governments, foundations and school boards on the planning, delivery and evaluation of citizen participation programs for youth and adults. He was also a social studies, civics and communications teacher at various schools and in several church public education programs in Toronto.