Healthy Built Environments

Dr. David L. Mowat
Medical Officer of Health for the Region of Peel

Dr. David Mowat is the Medical Officer of Health for the Region of Peel, the second largest, and fastest growing, health unit in Ontario. During his career, Dr. Mowat has held positions at local, provincial and national levels. Prior to joining The Region of Peel in 2007, Dr. Mowat was Deputy Chief Public Health Officer at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He was responsible for national initiatives to strengthen public health practice, including surveillance systems, knowledge translation, the development of the public health workforce, and public health information policy, privacy law and ethics.

Dr. Mowat joined Health Canada in 1998, moving to the newly-created Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004. Previous appointments include Consultant in Maternal and Child Health in the Public Health Branch of the Government of Newfoundland, Medical Officer of Health for Kingston and area, and Chief Medical Officer of Health for Ontario.

Dr. Mowat received his medical training at the University of Edinburgh, and a master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a fellow in community medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow (by distinction) of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Medicine (UK). He is an adjunct faculty member at Queen’s, the University of Toronto and McMaster University.

Public Health and our Built Environment: Drawing the Roadmap for Change

Daniel H. Leeming
Urban Planning and Design

Dan is a founding partner of The Planning Partnership and has worked on the design and development of new towns and various sizes of planned communities for private and public agencies throughout Ontario and the United States over his 35 years of experience. His areas of expertise include community planning, from regional to neighbourhood scale with the application of urban design, sustainable initiatives and facilitation to create meaningful and complete communities while satisfying the needs of the marketplace.

Many of his projects have received awards not only from Provincial and National Planning Associations, but from private sector building and development organizations.

Dan also works with various universities, is an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph, and teaches Urban Design at the University of Toronto. He has also authored several articles for the Ontario Planning Journal on topics such as changing energy needs, public health and urban design, our aging society and sustainable innovation in community design.

Dan is an active a founding member of the Urban Design Working Group within the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, and a Board Member with the Council on Canadian Urbansim (CanU) as well as Active Healthy Kids Canada. As the former Vice Chair of the Toronto Design Review Board, he is currently a member of the Mississauga Urban Design Advisory Panel, and co-chairs the Canadian LEED-ND review committee.

Healthy Communities

Dr. Bob Nosal
Medical Officer of Health, Halton Region

Dr. Bob Nosal has been the Medical Officer of Health for Halton Region since 1991. As Medical Officer of Health, he heads up the Health Department, which delivers public health programs, ambulance services and mental health services. He has served on a number of regional and provincial committees over the past 20 years addressing a wide array of public health issues including co-chairing the provincial technical review committee which guided the overall development of the most recent public health program standards for Boards of Health in Ontario.

Bob graduated from Queen’s University Medical School in 1978 and did all his postgraduate training at the University of Toronto. He has worked as a small town family practitioner and as an occupational medical consultant. Dr. Nosal is also a lecturer at the University of Toronto in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Healthy Communities

David Oikawa

David Oikawa has worked in the development industry and for a number of municipalities in both policy planning and development review at the regional and local level, including the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, the City of Hamilton, and the towns of Dundas and Ancaster. He is the former Director of Planning for the Borough of East York. David is currently a Manager of Community Planning in the City of Toronto and is responsible for the Midtown Toronto Area. He has been extensively involved with the planning of Etobicoke Centre, the Yonge-Eglinton Centre and a number of corridor intensification areas. David has an undergraduate degree in Urban Planning from the University of Waterloo and a Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Western Ontario.

Healthy Communities

Honourable Glen Murray

Glen Murray has a lifetime of activism in urban planning, sustainable development and community health. He was the Senior Resident and Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Design at Massey College, University of Toronto and worked on the Development of the University’s City Centre. He was a Managing Partner of AuthentiCITY, a Toronto based Urban Sustainability consulting and planning firm.

He was appointed President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute in 2007 and led the development of award winning programs in community energy mapping and planning, regional economic development and culture lead regeneration of urban centres.

He has served on several university, hospital and community boards including the Expo 2015 Bid Committee and the Toronto District School Board’s Reference Group for Improving Services for Marginalized Students.

Glen was appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada to Chair the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE), where he helped to shape environmental policy and respond to climate change in Canada.

Glen is a founding member of the Canadian AIDS Society and was Director of Health Education and HIV Prevention Services at the Village Clinic/9 Circles Community Health Centre in Winnipeg. He was also part of the World Health AIDS Service Organization’s working group for the Global Program on AIDS.

Glen was mayor of the City of Winnipeg and during his tenure was the Chair of the Big City Mayors Caucus where he lead the successful campaign that resulted in the federal government to transfer the equivalent of 5 cents a liter of the federal excise tax on gas to municipalities for infrastructure renewal and construction.

Glen has a long history of active participation in human rights and social activism. He was a member of the Toronto Gay Patrol in 1983, the Co-Chair of Canadians for Equal Marriage and has logged over 5,000 kilometres cycling for Habitat for Humanity’s fundraising “Cycle for Hope” to raise money for affordable housing in Canada.

In recognition of Glen’s efforts toward historical preservation in the downtown and his encouragement of high standards and creativity in design, he was made an Honourary Member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 2002. Glen’s public service has led to several awards including the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the 2003 “Fight for LGBT Justice and Equality” award from Egale Canada and for his work with the aboriginal community he was given the highest honour of an Eagle Feather.

Glen was born in Montreal where he earned a diploma from John Abbott College. He then attended Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs for four years, majoring in Urban Studies. While at Concordia, he served as President of the student union.

Expectations for the Day

Kim Bergeron

Kim is a requested keynote speaker and facilitator for provincial and national events. She is known for working to bridge the knowledge gap between land-use planners and public health professionals, trained at the Built Environment Assessment Training Institute and is a Certified Concept Mapping Facilitator. Kim is currently working on a PhD. with a focus on developing a land-use planning and public health framework to promote the design of active communities. Her research involves data collection from land-use planners, public health professionals, and provincial policy makers.

Kim is the Chair of the Planning Active Communities across Ontario Committee, a committee that engages provincial policy makers, land-use planners and public health professionals to work collaboratively to develop tools and resources to support the design and promotion of active communities.

Kim was the primary researcher and writer of eight “Making the Case for Active Transportation” bulletins on behalf of the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Institute and author of numerous papers on the importance of land-use planners and public health professionals to develop collaborative partnerships.