‘Respectfully scrappy’ activist Lynda Lukasik will now lead Hamilton’s climate change office

Lynda Lukasik famously proved you can fight city hall by taking Hamilton to court in 1999 over a landfill leaking toxic pollution into Red Hill Creek. Lukasik, 55, has just accepted a job as director of the city’s new climate change office starting Dec. 12. It’s a chance to directly affect the city’s approach to “an urgent climate crisis” that Lukasik said she couldn’t pass up. “I’ve put a lot of my life into Environment Hamilton and the work we’ve done in this community and I’m very proud of that work. One of Lukasik’s first tasks is to help prioritize the laundry list of actions in the city’s high-level strategy.