Dermod Travis

Dermod Travis is the founder of PIRA Communications and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Canada Tibet Committee. With PIRA Communications, Mr. Travis’ clients have included the Green Party of Canada, West Coast Title Search, Royal LePage, Greenpeace International, the Douglas Hospital Foundation, world-ranked welterweight boxer Hercules Kyvelos, tri-athlete Kelly Guest, and Neighbourhood Watch. His media campaigns have helped numerous community organizations, including Nazareth House, Santropol Roulant, the SPCA Montérégie, MIND High School and the Montréal Fringe Festival. Travis successfully developed strategies that led to the release of illegally imprisoned McGill University graduate student Jorge Passalacqua from Peru and the unprecedented pardon of Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience Kamel Masmoudi from Tunisia. Travis initiated the process for the filing of class action lawsuits to protect Bre-X shareholders following Canada's largest ever stock fraud and what was described as the largest NGO effort to protect 23 000 Guyanese from a 1995 cyanide spill. His investigative research on issues such as Hydro-Québec, Golden Lion Resources, U.S. vulture fund Brazos and political fund raising irregularities have led to front page newspaper coverage across Canada. In 2002, he was appointed by Québec's Minister of Education as one of three members of the Comité d'examen sur la langue d'enseignement. In 2000, he was appointed by the Québec government to the Estates General on the Future of the French language – one of the first ever anglophones appointed to such a sensitive commission. Leaders of both linguistic communities praised the commission's final report for its balanced approach. In 1999, he was appointed to the Québec Youth Summit's committee on Opening Québec to the World and later served as a Summit participant at the invitation of then Premier Lucien Bouchard. In 1999, Mr. Travis represented Québec at the Québec-France conference in Paris on cultural diversity and was a delegate to the 1997 Québec-Canada Dialogue. In 1994, he co-founded Forum Action Québec, a community organization promoting greater understanding between Québec's linguistic communities. For 8 years he served on the board of CLSC Saint-Louis du parc, a local health clinic. His views are sought by a variety of international media, including Japan's Asahi Shimbum, the Washington Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera, The Congression