Sydney Oakes, Principal
Sydney completed her undergraduate degree at Trent University in Politics and Indigenous Studies, studied Indigenous eco-tourism models at the Universidad Tecnológica del Valle del Mezquital in Mexico, and completed her master’s degree at McMaster University in the Public Policy and Administration Program, where she was a contributor to 'Indigenous Futures: Research Sovereignty in a Changing Social Science Landscape' (2017).
Early in her career, Sydney refined her policy skills as an analyst for the Six Nations Elected Council, as a member of their Research Ethics Committee, and by later implementing the Municipal Elections Act for the Clerk’s Office in Haldimand County.
Following these early career accomplishments, Sydney was chosen as one of ten Canadians to participate in the highly competitive Ontario Legislative Internship Programme’s fellowship at Queen’s Park (OLIP), where she advised MPPs in both government and opposition and honed her skills in legislative analysis, strategy, research, constituency affairs, speech writing, event management, and media relations. During her time at Queen’s Park, Sydney also Chaired both the OLIP Meetings and Sponsorship Committees.
Most recently, Sydney executed government relations and advocacy strategies as the Director of Policy and Provincial Affairs for the for Chiefs of Ontario, the official non-partisan organization advocating for the collective interests of the 133 First Nations communities in Ontario, before moving to the private sector to perform management consultant services for clients as a Senior Consultant for MNP – one of the largest full-service chartered accountancy and business advisory firms in Canada.
Today, Sydney serves as a Strategic Partnerships Executive for the Young Diplomats of Canada, a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization that develops Canada’s future leaders in diplomacy, policy, and advocacy and as a Director on the Petawawa Military Family Resource Centre’s Board of Directors to provide exceptional programming and services to support military families.
Sabrina Grover, Principal
Sabrina is an experienced advocacy, policy and communications professional who has worked extensively with civil society and youth.
Sabrina previously worked in Government Relations with the Calgary Real Estate Board and then the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), focusing on government affairs and legislation related to housing at all levels of government.Sabrina’s work focused on developing policies that protect and support home owners, and effectively considered land-use, and created an enabling environment along the housing continuum.
Sabrina has also worked extensively in provincial politics in Alberta prior to the dissolution of the PC Party of Alberta, where she focused on campaigns, youth engagement, and media relations. Sabrina’s media experience has been primarily focused on political engagement. Sabrina served as the communications and media lead as part of her role on the Board of Directors for a provincial political party in Alberta between 2015 and 2017, including leading on media engagement for the party leadership convention. Sabrina also served as the media and communications lead as a part of a local campaign in Calgary in the 2017 municipal elections.
Sabrina participated in electoral missions in Zimbabwe in 2018 and in Sri Lanka in 2019 as part of the Commonwealth Observer Group. Sabrina’s work included meeting with members of civil society organisations, women’s groups, youth groups, and political representatives. Sabrina contributed extensively to the Electoral Observation Mission reports and lead authorship on the sections on participation and inclusion. These included detailing the barriers to electoral participation for women and youth, as well as making recommendations to the government on changes to make participation more inclusive, socially cohesive and accessible.
Sabrina has also served as the co-chair of the Youth 7 (Y7) summit, which serves as the formal side engagement to the G7 as part of Canada's 2018 G7 presidency. Sabrina spent over 10 years working in developing programs for youth academic conferences focused on the United Nations in Calgary, Seattle, Portland and New York.