©Courvette/Ottawa
Isabel Metcalfe
Chair
Isabel Metcalfe is a successful businesswoman and advocate with a distinguished record of community involvement. With expertise in Aboriginal issues, Canada’s film and television industry, organized labour, renewable energy and public and private institutions, she provides public affairs counsel to national organizations and unions. Starting as a Tour Guide on Parliament Hill, she worked in the offices of three Prime Ministers -- Pierre Elliott Trudeau, John Turner and Jean Chrétien. Developing an expertise in partnership development she has worked for ParticipACTION/ Canada 125, the International Year of the Family and the Citizen’s Forum on Canada’s Future (The Spicer Commission). She has been a candidate for the House of Commons and the City of Ottawa.
An International Election Observer for both the Government of Canada and the National Democratic Institute she has helped advance democracy in Ukraine, Lebanon, Albania and Azerbaijan.
The Founding Chair of Famous 5 Ottawa – the group that ensured placement of the Women Are Persons! Monument on Parliament Hill as well as having Canadian women recognized on the $50 bank note – Famous 5 Ottawa honours women as nation builders. In 2010 she founded the Norton Rose Fulbright Mentorship Program coaching and mentoring young women, providing opportunities for them to speak and gain media experience.
Isabel Metcalfe has received the Commemorative Medal for the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 and the Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. She has been awarded the Leading Women Building Communities Award and the Volunteer Service Award by the Province of Ontario. In 1998 she was named a Judy LaMarsh Woman of Distinction.
Isabel Metcalfe holds a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University, as well as Grade 8 Piano and Grade II Theory from the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music.
