Eric St Pierre

Éric St-Pierre is a Canadian climate advocate, philanthropist, and (since April 2025) politician who led the Montréal-based Trottier Family Foundation as its first Executive Director from 2016 to 2025. Established in 2000 by Matrox co-founder Lorne Trottier and the Trottier family, the Foundation funds projects that advance scientific discovery, mitigate climate change, protect the environment, and improve health and education. Under St-Pierre, the Foundation grew to a team of about nine to ten professionals and became one of the best-known foundations of its kind in Canada, refocusing its grantmaking on innovation across health, education, science, and the environment.

St-Pierre's path to philanthropy ran through the law. He holds concurrent (dual) degrees in civil law and common law from McGill University and a political science degree from Concordia University, and was called to the Québec Bar in 2012. Before joining the Foundation he practiced Indigenous and environmental law for roughly five years as a litigator and mediator, working on Indigenous issues, mining cases, and tenant representation. He has said he moved into philanthropy because "the work I could do in philanthropy would probably be a lot more influential than in law." His environmental commitment traces back to a childhood in Sudbury, Ontario, where he witnessed industrial pollution firsthand.

During his tenure he became a recognized leader in Canadian climate philanthropy: he co-founded Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3) and the Greater Montréal Climate Fund (Fonds climat du Grand Montréal), helped establish Canada's first funder-led health-and-climate program, and in 2024 helped mobilize roughly C$405 million toward Canadian climate philanthropy. He has received several honors, including the Canadian Climate Champion Award (2021), Clean50 recognition (2022), McGill's Honorary Scarlet Key (2020), and Lawyer of the Year (alternative-career category) from the Jeune Barreau de Montréal (2022).

In 2025 St-Pierre stepped down from the Foundation to run federally, winning the riding of Honoré-Mercier for the Liberal Party with about 60% of the vote and entering the House of Commons. The Foundation announced Karel Mayrand as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective August 18, 2025. As a result, the contact details above may be transitional, and St-Pierre's current public role is as a Member of Parliament rather than an active funder.

• Operated as a catalytic/early-stage philanthropic funder, not a venture investor — deploying grants and mission-related capital to *launch and scale* new climate organizations and initiatives rather than buying equity in startups.
• Concentrated on climate change mitigation and the clean-energy transition, alongside the Foundation's pillars of scientific discovery, environment, health, and education.
• Emphasis on systems-level and policy impact: engaging federal, provincial, and municipal climate policy, and building coalitions and pooled funds (e.g., LC3, Montréal Climate Partnership) to multiply impact.
• Strong preference for collaboration and co-funding — his signature achievement was mobilizing ~C$405M *with* other foundations, signaling a thesis that climate problems require pooled, multi-funder capital.
• In his own words, philanthropy was attractive precisely because it could be "a lot more influential than law" — favoring leverage and influence over incremental wins.