Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the keynote speaker at the 13th Annual Surrey Environment and Business Awards luncheon held by the Surrey Board of Trade.
It’s happening on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel and tickets are $175 apiece or $1,925 for a table of 11.
Seats, says board CEO Anita Huberman, are “extremely limited.”
The award celebrate Surrey-based businesses and board member who demonstrate “exceptional dedication” to environmental issues.
Kennedy’s father was New York senator and U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and president John F. Kennedy was his uncle.
“We are very excited to bring the son of Robert Kennedy to Surrey, British Columbia,” Huberman told the Now-Leader.
“We’re going to be the largest city in B.C. and with him and Steve Forbes coming later in November to Surrey, we are wanting to put Surrey on the map,” she added.
“Surrey cannot be ignored. Robert Kennedy is of course very engaged in Silicon Valley and we are trying to make Surrey the next clean tech, really high-tech hub for Canada and so we look forward to hearing his great words of wisdom.”
Kennedy is president and co-founder of Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental protection group working to preserve and conserve water resources.
He is also a partner in Silicon Valley’s VantagePoint Ventures Partners’ CleanTech investment team and Rolling Stone magazine named him among “100 agents of change.”
His impending Surrey engagement is not without controversy as Kennedy is a high-profile skeptic of childhood vaccination and has lent his support to the so-called anti-vaxxer movement in the U.S.
“We’re certainly aware of it and understand and appreciate the concerns by the members of the public,” Huberman said, “but he’s going to be speaking on clean technology, environmental policy, water resources at our environment and business awards so I know that there’s concern and whenever you bring in a high-profile speaker such as Mr. Kennedy, there are causes that they may or may not support that are beyond our control.”
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