Mr. Cleland is a private consultant with extensive experience in energy and environment policy.
He is an Executive in Residence with the University of Ottawa’s Positive Energy Project, immediate past chair of the Board of Directors at the Canadian Energy Research Institute, chair of the board of directors of QUEST (Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow) and a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
From 2003 to 2010 he served as President and CEO of the Canadian Gas Association
From 2000 to 2003 he served as Senior Vice President with the Canadian Electricity Association
From 1987 to 2000 he served in several roles with the federal government in the Departments of Finance and then Energy Mines and Resources (later Natural Resources Canada). In his last five years with the federal government he was Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) of the Energy Sector at NRCan.
Before joining the federal government, from 1982 to 1987, Mr. Cleland was a partner in an independent consulting firm in Nova Scotia specializing in economic policy and socio-economic impact assessment. Over the same period he worked at Dalhousie University managing international management training projects and teaching a graduate level course in business-government relations at the School of public Administration.
From 1974 to 1982 he worked for the Nova Scotia government in urban and regional planning and economic policy
He was educated at the University of British Columbia (BA in political science 1972) and Queens (MPL urban and regional planning 1974).
RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY MICHAEL CLELAND
The Invention of China
Pursuing Canada’s COP commitments requires changing how energy decisions are made
The Multiplicity of Energy Security