Council Member Biographies

Dr. André Corriveau – Public Health Network Council Provincial Co-Chair
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Alberta Health and Wellness

On March 23, 2009, Dr. André Corriveau was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) for the province of Alberta.

The Chief Medical Officer of Health acts on behalf of the Minister of Health to monitor the health of Albertans and to make recommendations to the Minister and Alberta Health Services on measures to protect and promote the health of the public and to prevent disease and injury.  The CMOH plays a key role in advising on the need for legislation, policies and practices affecting public health.

April 1, 2010, Dr. Corriveau became the Provincial/Territorial Co-Chair of the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network.  He is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Institute of Health Information’s Population Health Initiative, as well as the Advisory Council of the National Collaborating Centres for Public Health.

From 1998 to March 2009, Dr. Corriveau served as the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Northwest Territories.  His responsibilities included health promotion, disease surveillance, communicable disease control, chronic disease prevention, and environmental health.

Dr. Corriveau received his degree in medicine from McGill University in 1981 and completed a residency in community medicine as well as a Master in Business Administration at Laval University in 1986.

Prior to moving to the Northwest Territories in 1994, Dr. Corriveau worked in Nova Scotia and Nunavik.

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Dr. David Butler-Jones – Public Health Network Council Federal Co-Chair
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada

Dr. David Butler-Jones is Canada's first Chief Public Health Officer. He heads the Public Health Agency of Canada which provides leadership on the government's efforts to protect and promote the health and safety of Canadians.

He has worked in many parts of Canada in both Public Health and Clinical Medicine, and has consulted in a number of other countries.

Dr. Butler-Jones has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has been involved as a researcher in a broad range of public health issues. He is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba as well as a Clinical Professor with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine.

From 1995 to 2002, Dr. Butler-Jones was Chief Medical Health Officer and Executive Director of the Population Health and Primary Health Services Branches for the Province of Saskatchewan.

Dr. Butler-Jones has served with a number of organizations including as: President of the Canadian Public Health Association; Vice President of the American Public Health Association; Chair of the Canadian Roundtable on Health and Climate Change; International Regent on the board of the American College of Preventive Medicine; Member of the Governing Council for the Canadian Population Health Initiative; Chair of the National Coalition on Enhancing Preventive Practices of Health Professionals; and Co-Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Public Health in the 21st Century.

In recognition of his service in the field of public health, York University's Faculty of Health bestowed on Dr. Butler-Jones an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

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Ms. Jan Sanderson – Manitoba (P/T DM Liaison)
Deputy Minister, Department of Healthy Living, Youth and Seniors

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Jan graduated with her Masters degree in Public Affairs through a joint program with the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba in 1980.  She then launched her career in the civil service by working as the Director of the Canada Service Bureau for the Federal Government of Canada, establishing one-stop federal information and service centres in Western Canada until 1983.

Jan worked as a Regional Director for Katimavik from 1983-1985.  She then returned to the civil service with the Province of Saskatchewan where she stayed for four years.  During this time Jan worked in Executive Recruitment with the Public Service Commission and as the Director of Communications for the Departmental of Education.

In 1999, Jan returned to Manitoba and began her career with the Government of Manitoba, specifically with the Civil Service Commission, where she spent ten years.  Jan held senior positions in executive development, employment services and labour relations, leading to becoming the Director of Human Resources for the Departments of Health and Family Services from 1999 to 2001.

In 2001, Jan was given the opportunity to direct a new government initiative, Healthy Child Manitoba, reporting to the Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet.  In this role, Jan is responsible for linking the aspirations and efforts of multiple departmental and community partners to achieve the Healthy Child vision: “best outcomes for Manitoba’s children”.

In 2009, the Government of Manitoba created a new department, Healthy Living, Youth and Seniors that has a focus on health wellness across the lifespan and the prevention and promotion of life limiting issues, such as addiction services.  Jan was appointed Deputy Minister of this new department, while retaining her role as CEO of the Healthy Child Initiative.

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Ms. Sherri Wright – Yukon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Health and Social Services

Sherri Wright has worked for the Yukon government for over twenty years in a variety of departments - the past 12 years of which have been with the Department of Health and Social Services. Ms. Wright was formerly the Director of Insured Health and Hearing Services for four years before being appointed as Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Services. She has represented Yukon on a variety of federal, provincial and territorial committees and working groups. Ms. Wright is Yukon’s Board Member for the Canadian Association of Drugs and Technology in Health (CADTH) and also chairs the finance committee for that organization.

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Mr. Dana Heide – Northwest Territories
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Health and Social Services

Dana Heide was appointed  Assistant Deputy Minister, NWT in February 2008. He represents all three Territories on the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Prior to this appointment, he led a number of Government-wide initiatives.

Dana has served as the Director of Child and Family Services, the Director of Primary Community Care Services, and the Director of Mental Health.

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Dr. Geraldine Osborne– Nunavut
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Department of Health and Social Services

Dr. Geraldine Osborne is the Chief Medical Officer of Health in Nunavut. She received her medical degree from University College Dublin, Ireland in 1982. After initially working as a family practitioner, she has been working as a public health physician since 1996. She is a member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland. In 2001 she moved from Ireland to Iqaluit to work with the Government of Nunavut as Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health. She has been in her new role since April 1, 2011.

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Dr. Perry Kendall – British Columbia
Provincial Health Officer, Ministry of Health

On May 3, 1999, Dr. Kendall was appointed Provincial Health Officer for the province of British Columbia. Dr. Kendall has more than 25 years of experience practicing public health and community medicine in Ontario and British Columbia at both the municipal and provincial levels of government.

He has served as Medical Officer of Health for the Capital Health Region in British Columbia and the City of Toronto in Ontario, has spent time as Special Advisor to the Deputy Minister in Ontario, was President and CEO of the Ontario Addiction Research Foundation for three years and spent one year as Vice President for Seniors Health in the Capital Health Region. 

Dr. Kendall has served on numerous Federal/Provincial/Territorial Advisory Committees and co-chaired the Public Health Network Council from 2005-2010. Born in the United Kingdom in 1943, Dr. Kendall completed his undergraduate medical training at University College Hospital Medical School in 1968 and his specialty training in community medicine at the University of British Columbia in 1984.

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Ms. Margaret King – Alberta
Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Health, Alberta Health and Wellness

Margaret is the Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Health Division, Alberta Health and Wellness. She has a strong interest in public health and epidemiology, and fifteen years experience working in government. Throughout her tenure with government, her work has been focused on the use of evidence in the public sector: the prevalence and incidence of diseases, developing measures for planning, evaluation, monitoring, reporting and informing policy development.

Prior to this most recent appointment (September 1, 2007), she was the Executive Director of the Planning and Performance Branch. The work focused on planning for the delivery of quality health services, reporting on the performance of the health system, development of a business intelligence environment and managing the dissemination of information and data for research.

Margaret has a graduate degree from the University of Alberta. In addition to her public sector experience she has worked as a nurse in acute care and public health.

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Mr. Rick Trimp - Saskatchewan
Executive Director, Population Health Branch, Ministry of Health

Mr. Trimp joined the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health in December 2006 and his primary responsibilities are in the public health sector for Saskatchewan.  Mr. Trimp’s areas of responsibility include: the office of the Chief Medical Health Officer; environment; public health inspection; communicable and non-communicable disease epidemiology; communicable disease control; public health programming; population health promotion and pharmaco-epidemiology.   Mr. Trimp is the Chairman of the Saskatchewan Public Health Council and is a member of the Executive on the Public Health Network Council.

Prior to arriving in Saskatchewan he was with the Northwest Territories’ Department of Health and Social Services for 13 years holding senior roles in acute care, supplementary health benefits, Medicare and primary care areas.   

Mr. Trimp has served on several Federal/Provincial/Territorial committees relating to service delivery, health human resources and key technologies, he was also a member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health.

Prior to moving to Canada, Mr. Trimp was Chief Executive Officer of a hospital district in Washington State and was also with the U.S. Navy Physical Therapy program as a front line provider.

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Dr. Joel Kettner – Manitoba
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Manitoba Health

Dr. Kettner was raised in Winnipeg and obtained his medical degree at the University of Manitoba, graduating in 1976. After two years of work in emergency medicine, he undertook his first residency program, obtaining his general surgery fellowship in 1984. Following that, he spent three years in London, England where he obtained a Masters of Science in Epidemiology at the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and undertook further work in surgery and research. He returned to Winnipeg for his second residency program, obtaining his fellowship in Community Medicine in 1991.

Since then, he has worked as a Medical Officer of Health, first in rural and northern Manitoba and then in Winnipeg before his appointment as Chief Medical Officer of Health in September 1999 and Manitoba’s first Chief Provincial Public Health Officer in July, 2007.

He is past chair of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Conference of Deputy Ministers of Health Advisory Committee on Population Health and Health Security (ACPHHS) and the Health Disparities Task Group of ACPHHS. He is currently a member of the Pan Canadian Public Health Network Council and the Canadian Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health.

He is assistant professor of the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, where he is director of the undergraduate program in Community Medicine. He is a part time urgent care and emergency physician at the Misericordia Urgent Care Centre.

He and his wife, Charlotte Johnson, have six children and live in Winnipeg.

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Dr. Arlene King – Ontario
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

Dr. King assumed the position of Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario on June 15, 2009.

She is an internationally recognized expert in immunization, infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness. Prior to joining the ministry, Dr. King was the Director General of the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), a position that she held since 2007.  Also she held several other positions with Health Canada/PHAC between 1999 and 2007, including the position of Director General, Pandemic Preparedness.

Dr. King received her medical degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, certification in Family Medicine from the University of Calgary, and served as a family physician in northern Alberta from 1985 to 1989. In 1990, she received a Master’s Degree in Health Sciences from the University of British Columbia, and in 1992, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Community Medicine.

Dr. King has been in the public health field since 1992. She held various roles in communicable disease control at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, and served as a Unit Medical Officer of Health in Vancouver and Medical Officer of Health in Burnaby, B.C.  She is an adjunct professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia.

Dr. King is a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) International Health Regulations Review Committee and has been a consultant to the WHO on polio, SARS and influenza. She is a member of the Pan American Health Organization technical advisory group on immunization and the WHO Africa Region Polio Eradication Certification Commission.  She has also been an advisor to the World Bank and Canadian International Development Agency on emerging infectious diseases. From 2004 to 2006, she served on the Board of the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). 

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Dr. Alain Poirier – Québec
Directeur national de santé publique et Sous-ministre adjoint à la Direction générale de la santé publique, Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux

Alain Poirier specializes in internal medicine and community health. He has been working in the public health network for over fifteen years and is recognized by the public as a result of his work as health editor and facilitator with various print and electronic media.

Assistant clinical professor at the department of social and preventive medicine at Université de Montréal, he also takes part in missions abroad as consultant and instructor in the field of international health. Over the last few years, he has worked as medical examiner at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec and as public health consultant with the ministère de l'Environnement et de l'Eau du Québec.

Since January 27, 2003, Dr. Poirier has held the position of national director of public health and assistant deputy minister at the public health branch of the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux.

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Dr. Eilish Cleary – New Brunswick
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Department of Health

Dr. Eilish Cleary became the Chief Medical Officer in 2008 after coming to New Brunswick from Manitoba, in 2007, to take on the position of Deputy Chief Medical Officer.

Dr. Cleary worked as a Regional Medical Officer for several years before becoming the Medical Officer for Emergency Preparedness and Response for Manitoba. She has a lot of experience in the public health aspects of Emergency Preparedness and Response. She was also an associate of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and an assistant professor, with the Department of Community Health Sciences, at the University of Manitoba.

Before working in the Public Health field, Dr. Cleary was trained as a Primary Care Physician. She has worked in a variety of settings including Ireland, England and Sierra Leone.  She has also served as Chief of Staff in the Norway House Hospital, at a Cree First Nations community in Northern Manitoba.

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Dr. Heather Morrison – Prince Edward Island
Chief Health Officer, Department of Health and Wellness

Dr. Heather Morrison was appointed Chief Health Officer for PEI in July 2007.  As PEI’s first female Rhodes Scholar, she completed both a Master's and Doctorate degree at University of Oxford in Comparative Social Research and Social Policy with a thesis dissertation in health policy decision-making.  Dr. Morrison returned to Canada for her medicine training, completing her MD at Dalhousie University, followed by residency training in Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.

In addition to her involvement and interest in public health as PEI’s Chief Health Officer, Dr. Morrison continues to practice emergency medicine in Charlottetown, where she lives with her husband and 3 young children.

 

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Dr. Robert Strang – Nova Scotia
Chief Public Health Officer, Department of Health and Wellness

Dr. Robert Strang is the Chief Public Health Officer and Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Province of Nova Scotia. He completed his medical degree (1990), family practice residency (1992) and Community Medicine Residency (1997) at the University of British Columbia. He was an Associate Medical Officer of Health in British Columbia from 1997-1999. In 1999, he moved to Halifax to become Medical Officer of Health for Capital District Health Authority. In January 2007 he became Acting Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province. Dr. Strang was appointed Nova Scotia’s first Chief Public Health Officer in August, 2007.

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Ms. Rosemary Boyd – Newfoundland and Labrador
Director of Government Relations, Department of Health & Community Services

Rosemary began her career in the public service in 1993 with the Advanced Studies Branch of the Department of Education. In 2006, Rosemary joined the Newfoundland and Labrador Ministry of Health and Community Services where she current is responsible for the co-ordination and evaluation of a broad spectrum of the department’s intergovernmental activity. She provides policy development support, integrated policy analysis and strategic intergovernmental advice.  She has represented Newfoundland and Labrador on a variety of Federal, provincial and territorial committees and working groups.

Rosemary holds degrees in Education and Social Science from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Prior to joining the public service in 1993, Rosemary worked as a teacher and adult educator. 

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Dr. Paul Gully – Canada (Federal Member)
Senior Medical Advisor, Office of the Deputy Minister, Health Canada

Dr. Gully is Senior Medical Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Minister of Health Canada where he is responsible for providing advice on public health risk management, surveillance, policy and research, and facilitates liaison between Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. He returned to Canada in September 2009 to assist in the response to the pandemic of H1N1, in particular in First Nations peoples.

From February to August 2009, Dr. Gully was Deputy Coordinator for the United Nations System Influenza Coordination office when he worked on preparation for, and the response, to the pH1N1 pandemic in the UN as well as plans for the provision of assistance to developing countries. He was based in WHO HQ Geneva on secondment from the Government of Canada, and from April 2006 until March 2009, he was Senior Advisor to the Assistant Director General, Health Security and Environment (HSE).

After the formation of the Public Health Agency of Canada in September 2004, until April 2006, Dr Gully was deputy chief public health officer for Canada responsible for infectious diseases and emergency preparedness. From 1990 to 2004 Dr Gully held various posts in Health Canada. Prior to 1990, Dr Gully worked in public health at the local and regional level in Canada, the UK and Zambia.

Dr. Gully is a physician with specialty training in public health in the United Kingdom and Canada and has held honorary and adjunct academic positions in the UK and Canada. He is an affiliate of the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. 

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