Leslie Wallace is best known on Salt Spring for organizing island opposition to the provincial government’s plan to overhead pesticide spray the island for gypsy moth. Her tireless work alongside other members of the community to develop an alternative made-on-Salt Spring plan that would eliminate the need for overhead spraying while meeting the province’s need to protect local forests from this invasive species resulted in the Ministry canceling the spray program. Leslie coordinated implementation of the alternative plan, working with a group of over 300 local volunteers from the program’s inception in 2006 through to its successful conclusion in 2009, when gypsy moth was eliminated from the island. The Program was awarded an Islands Trust Community Stewardship Award in 2007.

Leslie was born and raised in Canada and has lived on Salt Spring Island for over 18 years, during which time she has made numerous volunteer contributions to the community. A founding member of Transition Salt Spring, Leslie is inspired by and committed to the goals of the worldwide Transition Movement to increase local capacity to produce what we really need locally and build stronger local communities as a way to respond positively, at the local level, to the combined challenges of global economic instability, climate change and rising fossil fuel prices resulting from peak oil. She believes that community-lead efforts to resolve our biggest challenges are often more effective than big government solutions. She counts among her political heroes Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, who promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks.

Leslie has been a Commissioner on the SSI Liquid Waste Disposal Local Service Commission since the beginning of 2011 and served as former CRD Director Gary Holman’s Alternate on the CRD Pesticide Use Reduction Education Committee, a subcommittee of the CRD Roundtable on the Environment. Leslie has an Honours B.A. in Political Science with a Law Minor. A graduate of the International Institute for Building Biology and Ecology, she owned and operated a small business performing indoor environmental assessments. More recently, she returned to her former work, consulting for all levels of government and organizing and promoting events.

Leslie’s love of her community in combination with her desire to use her leadership skills, her innovative, positive approach to community challenges and her ability to work cooperatively with diverse groups in the service of the community are the motivations behind her decision to stand for election as CRD Director for Salt Spring Island.