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Healthy Eating, Active Living Conference Spotlight Speakers

• Honourable Jim Watson, Minister Of Health Promotion
• Roy Romanow, Senior Fellow in Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan and Visiting Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University
• Dr. Andrew Pipe, Medical Director, Prevention And Rehabilitation Centre University Of Ottawa Heart Institute And Professor, University Of Ottawa
• Dr. Mike Pratt, Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Physical Activity and Health Promotion
  Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Dr. Sylvie Stachenko, Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
• Dr. Paul Veugelers, Department Of Public Health Sciences, University Of Alberta
• Dr. Larry Frank, J. Armand Bombardier Chair Holder In Sustainable Urban Transportation Systems In The School Of Community And Regional Planning At The University Of British Columbia
• Dr. Eileen Kennedy, Dean Of The Gerald J. And Dorothy R. Friedman School Of Nutrition Science And Policy
• Dr. Sheela Basrur, Chief Medical Officer Of Health And Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Health Division, Ontario Ministry Of Health And Long-Term Care And Ministry Of Health Promotion
• Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika, University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine
• Dr. Val Tarasuk, Faculty Of Medicine, University Of Toronto
  
• Andre Picard, The Globe And Mail

Jim Watson has served as the Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament for the riding of Ottawa West – Nepean since 2003. In June 2005, Premier McGuinty appointed him Ontario’s first Minister of Health Promotion. In this portfolio, Mr. Watson is responsible for advancing the government’s preventative health initiatives. Priority areas include Ontario’s smoke-free strategy, healthy eating and active living, injury prevention and mental health promotion.

Previously, Mr. Watson served as Minister of Consumer and Business Services, responsible for improving and modernizing Ontario’s Liquor License Act, Consumer Protection Act and Film Classification Act. Mr. Watson is a graduate of the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication. Prior to his election to Ontario’s Legislative Assembly, he served in several elected and non-elected offices, including President and CEO of the Canadian Tourism Commission. Mr. Watson was Mayor of the City of Ottawa from 1997-2000. Before that, he was an Ottawa City Councillor for six years.

As Premier of Saskatchewan from 1991 to 2001, Roy Romanow undertook major health care reforms based on the premise of wellness and prevention. In 2001, he was appointed head of the Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, which produced the landmark report “Building on Values.” Mr. Romanow also served as a member on the Canadian Medical Association Task Force on the Allocation of Health Care Resources.

Mr. Romanow was a key player in the federal-provincial negotiations that resulted in the Constitutional Accord and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with Arts and Law Degrees and also holds honourary degrees from several universities. Mr. Romanow is a recipient of the Economic Justice Award from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation and the Pan American Health Organization’s Administration Award. In December 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Mr. Romanow currently is a Senior Fellow in Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan and Visiting Fellow in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University.

Dr. Pipe is director of the Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He is a professor at the University of Ottawa with appointments in the Department of Family Medicine and the Division of Cardiac Surgery.

Recognized as one of Canada’s leading experts in cardiovascular disease prevention, physical activity and smoking cessation, Dr. Pipe is founding chair of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. In 2002, he received the Order of Canada for his tobacco-control activities and for his championing of ethics and drug-free sport.

Dr. Pipe is active in sports medicine. He was chief medical officer for the 2006 Commonwealth Games and in October 2006 assumed the role of president of Commonwealth Games Canada. He is chair emeritus and medical science advisor to the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports. He graduated from Queen’s University Medical School.

Dr. Pratt is leader of the research and development team in the Physical Activity and Health Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He is principal investigator of CDC’s World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Physical Activity and Health Promotion and serves as a senior advisor to the national program office for Active Living Research.

Dr. Pratt is a fellow in the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Sports Medicine. His research interests include environmental and policy approaches to increasing participation in physical activity and the economic impact of physical inactivity.

Dr. Pratt completed a master’s degree in exercise physiology and a medical degree at the University of Washington in Seattle as well as medical residency training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. At CDC, he has earned a masters degree in public health at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Stachenko has been deputy chief public health officer at the Public Health Agency of Canada since 2004. Before that, she was director of health policy and services for the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and later director general in the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control at the Public Health Agency of Canada

At the Université de Montréal’s Department of Family Medicine, Dr. Stachenko served as research director. She joined the federal government in the Department of Health and Welfare and was appointed director, preventive health services.

Dr. Stachenko has earned multiple degrees including a doctorate in medicine from McGill University and a master’s degree in epidemiology and health services administration from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Stachenko completed her residency in family medicine at the Université de Montréal. 

Dr. Veugelers is an associate professor in University of Alberta’s Department of Public Health Sciences. His research on childhood obesity includes co-authorship of the Children’s Lifestyle and School Performance Study (the “Annapolis Valley Study”), conducted in 2005 at the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University, Halifax. He has a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Amsterdam and studied bio-statistical modelling as part of his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Veugelers received a Canadian Institutes for Health Research New Investigator Award for his population health research program on health deficiencies and inequalities. His published works include The Effectiveness of School Programs in the Prevention of Childhood Obesity, which appeared in the American Journal of Public Health. 

Dr. Frank holds the Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Urban Transportation Systems in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in the interaction among land use, travel behaviour, air quality and health.

Dr. Frank has conducted and published numerous studies for governmental agencies and private enterprise on the transportation, environmental and health impacts of urban development decisions and transportation investments. He co-leads the SMARTRAQ program, a leading-edge transportation and land-use research project in the Atlanta metropolitan region, and oversees two major programs: the LUTAQH program in Seattle (with the Center for Clean Air Policy) and a U.S. National Institutes of Health program in Central Puget Sound and Baltimore. He recently co-authored two books: Public Health and Community Design, The Impacts of The Built Environment on Physical Activity and Urban Sprawl and Public Health. 

Dr. Kennedy is dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and an international nutrition policy expert. She has championed nutrition research and its policy applications throughout her career, from seven years as nutrition's leading voice at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to her well-known studies of maternal and child health and nutrition in Africa, Asia and North and Central America.

Dr. Kennedy holds an undergraduate degree from Hunter College, two master’s degrees from Pennsylvania State University and Harvard University and a Doctor of Science in Nutrition degree from Harvard's School of Public Health. Professor Kennedy was recently president of the Global Nutrition Institute, an organization that links science-based nutrition research to action through public and private partnerships. She also served as global executive director of International Life Sciences Institute, a nutrition research organization.

Dr. Basrur is Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. She is also Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Health overseeing the work of over 6000 staff in 36 public health units and a wide range of public health services and programs. Dr. Basrur has a joint reporting relationship to the new Ministry of Health Promotion and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Dr. Basrur holds a Master of Health Science degree from the University of Toronto and is a specialist in community medicine. She is also a graduate from programs at the University of Western Ontario and Dalhousie University and is an assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Public Health Sciences. Dr. Basrur previously served as the Medical Officer of Health for the city of Toronto, and was recognized for her efforts related to SARS and to the public health community at large.

Dr. Kumanyika, a recognized authority on diet and health issues with a doctorate in the field of human nutrition, is professor of epidemiology and associate dean for health promotion and disease prevention at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In 2005, she won the first American Heart Association Population Research Prize for her work demonstrating the role of diet modifications and weight management in reducing risk of heart disease.

Dr. Kumanyika has a special interest in developing and evaluating culturally appropriate interventions in clinical and community settings to prevent or treat obesity among African Americans and Hispanic populations. She has been the lead investigator of major clinical trials on dietary changes in modifying cardiovascular risk factors. Dr. Kumanyika has chaired the American Heart Association Council on Epidemiology and Prevention and is director of a centre developing strategies to reduce obesity, funded by National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Tarasuk is on the frontline of study of domestic food insecurity. As professor and graduate coordinator with the Department of Nutritional Science at the University of Toronto, she focuses on the social and economic determinants of health and nutrition. Her research focuses on household food insecurity as a significant social problem and serious public health concern. As a parallel field of study, Dr. Tarasuk also focuses on Canadian food policy and population-level nutritional assessment.

Dr. Tarasuk studies nutritional vulnerability among women in families who access food banks in Toronto. She has examined food access, nutritional vulnerability and social exclusion among homeless youth in Toronto and has studied local responses to the food and nutrition needs of the homeless. She is a frequent contributor to publications such as the Canadian Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Nutrition.

Mr. Picard is one of Canada's top public policy writers. He is currently the public health reporter at The Globe and Mail, where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He also serves as the paper's Montreal Bureau Chief.

Mr. Picard has received great acclaim for his writing, including the Canadian Nurses' Association Award of Excellence in 2000 and 2001, the Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism and the Atkinson Fellowship for Public Policy Research. For a series of article on the obesity epidemic titled Obesity: The “Fattest or Fittest”, Mr. Picard was awarded the Pan American Health Organization’s Centennial Journalism Contest.

He is the author of the best-selling books Critical Care: Canadian Nurses Speak For Change and The Gift of Death: Confronting Canada's Tainted Blood Tragedy as well as A Call to Alms: The New Face of Charity in Canada.