Keynotes

Dr. TA Loeffler (www.taloeffler.com) is a unique combination of outdoor adventurer, educator, and motivational speaker. Her adventures have taken her to 35 different countries and 5 different continents. TA is a gifted speaker who has her audiences laughing aloud one moment and deep in thought the next. Her highly entertaining multi-media presentations overflow with passion for adventures of the body, mind, and soul. TA uses her vast collection of outdoor adventures to create metaphors that provide new ways to see and transform the inevitable obstacles of life. She tailors each presentation to the unique needs of the audience from Scout groups to corporate boardrooms. During her climb of Mount Everest, TA spread her message of "Big Dreams, Big Goals" to over 12,000 youth and 3000 adults.

Stewart Petrie is an Environmental Health Consultant based in the UK. He studied geology at Oxford University and worked in retail management and consultancy before changing direction and retraining in Environmental Health. He now works with local and National Governments on design and implementation of Environmental Health and Public Health Policy and Education. He has acted as an advisor to WHO and the UN, has worked in over 30 countries and has spoken at conferences on five continents. He has published widely on Environmental Health and Education matters. He is on the RedR register, is a Director of the Environmental Health Registration Board, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health Membership Committee. He holds numerous honorary fellowships from National Environmental Health Bodies across the world. He was a founder and 10 years a Trustee of the charity Water for Kids (www.waterforkids.org.uk). Married with a daughter, Stewart is growing old disgracefully.

Robert O’Neill joined Ogilvie LLP in August of 1990 as an articling student, became associate in 1991, and was admitted to partnership in 1999. He is currently a partner in the Civil Litigation Department. His law practice focuses upon insurance defence work, construction law, life insurance, personal injury, medical malpractice, and prosecution work on behalf of numerous provincial health authorities, municipalities and the Alberta Funeral Services Regulatory Board. Mr. O’Neill has conducted PHAAB appeals, Court of Queen’s Bench applications, and prosecutions and consultations with many of Alberta’s health regions. He has also presented before all levels of court and numerous boards.

The conference will feature a triple stream of professional concurrent sessions focusing on children’s environmental health, human health and climate change, emerging threats to human health, air quality, food safety and drinking water contamination. Given that the United Nations has designated 2008 as both the International Year of Sanitation and the International Year of Planet Earth, one of the three tracks will feature presentations on global environmental health issues.  Click here for a tentative conference schedule. (Revised June 2008)

The Board of Certification invites all conference delegates to participate in a Board of Certification Examiner Training Workshop.  Click here to learn more and to register.

Pre/Post Conference Workshops

Being able to understand and use health information is the foundation for effective public health practice in Canada. The Public Health Agency of Canada’s Skills Enhancement for Public Health: Skills Online continuing education program provides public health practitioners across Canada with the opportunity to develop and strengthen their public health knowledge and skills. Applying these skills will result in sound evidence-based decision-making and planning to protect and maintain the health of the public.

Skills Online provides professional, continuing education opportunities for public health practitioners that may otherwise be unobtainable or unaffordable. The core component of the program is a series of distance-learning, Internet-based continuing education modules in both English and French. The modules help practitioners to acquire and maintain the Core Competencies for Public Health. Since the launch of the first module in May 2002, over 2,200 public health practitioners from across Canada have taken one or more of the modules.

This interactive workshop will provide front line public health practitioners and managers with an overview of this web-based professional continuing education opportunity and will demonstrate the interactive features of the program. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the online modules, as well as experience what it is like to learn within an online environment.

For more information about Skills Enhancement for Public Health: Skills Online, visit our website at www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/skills 

Are you interested in getting an update on new developments in water treatment? Do you need a refresher course on well systems? Then you are invited to participate in a one-day course developed by the National Collaborating Center for Environmental Health (NCCEH) in partnership with CIPHI. In addition to sessions on specific topics such as effectiveness of membrane and conventional filtration, microbial risk assessment, and groundwater well construction and operations, a panel discussion on water treatment issues will be featured. Speakers will bring both practical and theoretical knowledge from a range of disciplines. Please join us for this informative and stimulating day.

For further information, visit www.ncceh.ca and click on the link for the course.