Environmentalism
Laird has talked about being raised around recycling and green ideas as the basis for his environmental activism. While involved with transportation and sustainability advocacy most of his life he became most involved after moving to New Westminster in 2003.
He was a founding member of New Westminster Environmental Partners, a New Westminster focused non-partisan sustainability advocacy group. Some notable accomplishments while working with NWEP are the implementation of an anti-idling bylaw, a cosmetic pesticide ban, pedestrian safety improvements at New Westminster SkyTrain Station and a Sustainability Documentary Film Festival. Laird was also a proponent for New Westminster's Royal City Farmers Market and has served on the board of directors for three years.
Always an advocate for transit and sustainable transportation, Laird is a member of the Livable Region Coalition. In conjunction with his NWEP work, Laird was a leader of the campaign to stop TransLink's United Boulevard Extension project. He's a motorman on Vancouver's Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway and was a driver on Bombardier's Olympic Line during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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