Patricia Adams

Patricia Adams is an economist and the Executive Director of Probe International, an independent think-tank and watchdog over the environmental consequences of Canadian government and corporate activities around the world. Her books include In the Name of Progress: The Underside of Foreign Aid, (Doubleday 1985), and Odious Debts: Loose Lending, Corruption and the Third World”s Environmental Legacy (Earthscan 1991), which exposes the jeopardy of years of loose lending for both the Third World’s environment and their economies, and proposes a legal remedy to place responsibility for the Third World’s debt crisis on the parties involved, instead of on First and Third World taxpayers. Pat also edited the English language translation of Yangtze! Yangtze!, the extraordinary critique by Chinese experts of the Three Gorges dam that inspired the democracy movement when it was first published in 1989, led to the postponement of the dam, and was subsequently banned by Chinese authorities.

Before coming to Probe International, Pat worked on a variety of development projects for the International Development Research Centre and Acres International. She has taught economics in Jamaica, advised the World Council of Churches” energy program, and Chaired the Nairobi-based Environment Liaison Centre, a coalition of 300 environmental and citizens’ groups from around the world. She is a co-founder of the International Rivers Network and the World Rainforest Movement, and is an associate editor of the British magazine, The Ecologist.

Pat has appeared before Congressional and Parliamentary Committees in the US and Canada and has given speaking tours of the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Chile. She submitted the paper, Patronage Canada, to the 1998 Export Development Act Review. She subsequently presented a Statement on The Review of the Export Development Act to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. She has written editorial page articles for major daily newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Guardian, New Statesman, and the Indian, Malaysian, and Jamaican press, and in Canada, the National Post, Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, and Hamilton Spectator. She has appeared on many of Canada’s major radio and TV news and current affairs programs, including Canada AM, As It Happens, Ideas, Newsworld, Face Off, and Morningside. Outside Canada, she has appeared on British, Australian, French, Thai, and Japanese TV and radio.

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