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Catherine McKenna
Catherine Mary McKenna PC (born August 5, 1971) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who was Minister of Environment and Climate Change from 2015 to 2019 and Minister of Infrastructure and Communities from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, McKenna was the member of Parliament (MP) for Ottawa Centre from 2015 to 2021.
After leaving politics, McKenna founded the Climate and Nature Solutions advisory firm, became a visiting fellow at Columbia University, and served as the chair of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities.
McKenna was born on August 5, 1971, in Hamilton, Ontario. She is the eldest of four children of Dr. John McKenna, an Irish dentist and his Quebec-born wife Pat McKenna, who lived in the southwest part of Hamilton.
After graduating from École élémentaire catholique Notre-Dame (her father insisted that all his children be bilingual despite not knowing any French himself), McKenna attended Saint Mary Catholic Secondary School.
McKenna earned her undergraduate degree in French and international relations from St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1994. She was the captain of the Varsity Blues' swim team, won three of the four Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union events she attended with her team, and reached the Canadian Olympics trials for swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics. After graduating from the University of Toronto, she travelled through south-east Asia and co-produced a travel documentary with her friend, Stephen Hulford. McKenna earned a master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics.
Between 1996 and 1999, McKenna studied law at McGill University before beginning her legal career in Jakarta, Indonesia at the firm, SSEK where she focused on international trade, investment and constitutional issues. In 2001, she moved to East Timor where she spent a year as a senior negotiator with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Timor which culminated in the Timor Sea Treaty providing for the joint exploitation of petroleum resources in a part of the Timor Sea.
She returned to Canada in 2002, where she joined Stikeman Elliott, working in the areas of competition, trade, and constitutional law. During this time she was senior counsel on the review of Canada's military justice system, headed by Antonio Lamer, former chief justice of Canada.
In 2005, McKenna co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad - Avocats canadiens à l'étranger (CLA-ACE), now called Level Justice, a University of Ottawa-based charity that helps Canadian law students and law firms do pro bono legal work in developing countries. Level Justice works to reduce barriers to justice by uniting the power of people, education and law will lead to create a more equitable and just society.
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Catherine McKenna
Catherine Mary McKenna PC (born August 5, 1971) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who was Minister of Environment and Climate Change from 2015 to 2019 and Minister of Infrastructure and Communities from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, McKenna was the member of Parliament (MP) for Ottawa Centre from 2015 to 2021.
After leaving politics, McKenna founded the Climate and Nature Solutions advisory firm, became a visiting fellow at Columbia University, and served as the chair of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities.
McKenna was born on August 5, 1971, in Hamilton, Ontario. She is the eldest of four children of Dr. John McKenna, an Irish dentist and his Quebec-born wife Pat McKenna, who lived in the southwest part of Hamilton.
After graduating from École élémentaire catholique Notre-Dame (her father insisted that all his children be bilingual despite not knowing any French himself), McKenna attended Saint Mary Catholic Secondary School.
McKenna earned her undergraduate degree in French and international relations from St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1994. She was the captain of the Varsity Blues' swim team, won three of the four Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union events she attended with her team, and reached the Canadian Olympics trials for swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics. After graduating from the University of Toronto, she travelled through south-east Asia and co-produced a travel documentary with her friend, Stephen Hulford. McKenna earned a master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics.
Between 1996 and 1999, McKenna studied law at McGill University before beginning her legal career in Jakarta, Indonesia at the firm, SSEK where she focused on international trade, investment and constitutional issues. In 2001, she moved to East Timor where she spent a year as a senior negotiator with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Timor which culminated in the Timor Sea Treaty providing for the joint exploitation of petroleum resources in a part of the Timor Sea.
She returned to Canada in 2002, where she joined Stikeman Elliott, working in the areas of competition, trade, and constitutional law. During this time she was senior counsel on the review of Canada's military justice system, headed by Antonio Lamer, former chief justice of Canada.
In 2005, McKenna co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad - Avocats canadiens à l'étranger (CLA-ACE), now called Level Justice, a University of Ottawa-based charity that helps Canadian law students and law firms do pro bono legal work in developing countries. Level Justice works to reduce barriers to justice by uniting the power of people, education and law will lead to create a more equitable and just society.
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