Monday, October 19, 2009

TICKET PURCHASE IS REQUIRED
6:00 pm No Host Reception
7:00 pm Dinner (Black Tie Optional)
Please note seating is limited and will be pre-assigned.

Join André Picard, public health reporter at The Globe and Mail and author of numerous books at the HCLABC Gala Dinner. This event is open to conference registrants and guests. Corporate tables are also available.

Dinner Keynote Topic
Meaningful Public Debate on the Future of Healthcare or a Fait accompli?

With a view across the countryís health system, an insightful mind and the ability to speak passionately and informatively about these and other topics, André Picard will engage on current and emerging healthcare issues, including access to medical insurance, the trend to a retreat to core services as well as public health and environment.

Mr. Picard is the public health reporter at The Globe and Mail, and the author of three bestselling books. Among his many other topics of interest, he recently wrote about the growth of private care in Canada, and asserted that, for instance, the Quebec government had just made ìsweeping changes to how medical care is delivered under the Medicare system: and it is doing so with little scrutiny. The new regulations were adopted just before the summer break, at a time when opposition parties are in disarray, and the media have largely failed to understand how profound the impact could be. The public deserves better. It deserves a vigorous debate, not a "fait accompli." The regulations open the doors wider for private medicine acknowledging the limitations of the Canada Health Act. Is this an indication of the future of healthcare in other provinces?

André Picard
André Picard is the public health reporter at The Globe and Mail and one of Canada’s top public policy writers.

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. He is also the author of A Call to Alms: The New Face of Charity in Canada. André has received much acclaim for his writing, including the Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism, the Canadian Policy Research Award, and the Atkinson Fellowship for Public Policy Research. In 2002, he received the Centennial Prize of the Pan-American Health Organization as the top public health reporter in the Americas. In 2005, the Canadian Public Health Association named him Canada’s first Public Health Hero.

He is also a four-time finalist for the National Newspaper Awards —Canada’s Pulitzer Prize. André has been the recipient of the Canadian Nurses’ Association Award of Excellence for Healthcare Reporting, the Nursing in the Media Award of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, the International Media Prize of Sigma Theta Tau (Nursing Honor Society), and the Science and Society Book Prize.

He is a former member of the advisory committees of the Canadian Institute for Child Health, Active Healthy Kids Canada.