Robert Sopuck - Vice President Policy Western Canada

Robert Sopuck was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba in 1973 and Masters from Cornell University (1975) in Ithaca, New York. His thesis topic dealt with rainbow trout population dynamics in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York. His first career was in fisheries management at both the federal and provincial level as well as with the private sector. From 1979 to 1988 he lived on his farm south of Riding Mountain National Park and operated a grain and oilseed farm, a small outfitting business, and carried out consulting work in the areas of environmental and resource management. From 1988 to 1996 he coordinated the sustainable development initiative for the province of Manitoba. At that time, as well, he was a member of the  Canadian delegation to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and was Manitoba’s observer on the Board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. In 1993 and 1994 he carried out a major project for Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and Economy dealing with agriculture and trade policy which became a chapter in the book Conservation of Great Plains Ecosystems: Current Science, Future Options (1995). He left government in 1996 and took a position with the Pine Falls Paper Company as Director of Environmental Programs. He was also on the Board of the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation.

In 1998 he moved back to his farm where he currently resides. He was an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Rural Development at Brandon University and has been a consultant in the field of environmental and natural resource policy with a strong bias towards rural issues. He is currently the Vice-President of Policy (Western Canada) for the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. He is also the Director of the Rural Renaissance Project for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.  He writes on rural affairs for the Brandon Sun and is the hunting and wildlife columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press. He is a member of the Outdoor Writers of Canada.

He is also the president of the Manitoba trout fishing development group known as the Fish and Lake Improvement Program for the Parkland Region.

He and his wife Caroline live on their 480 acres of land, a portion of which has been officially recognized by the Province of Manitoba as an Ecologically Significant Area and by the Nature Conservancy of Canada via a Conservation Agreement.