Dr. Anjali Helferty

Executive Director

Anjali started her engagement in climate activism as the first Council chair of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC) while working as the National Coordinator for the Sustainable Campuses Project at the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC). Following her time at SYC, she worked at the US-based Energy Action Coalition (now Power Shift Network). She subsequently worked as the Interim Director for the Southern Energy Network, a youth climate organization working in the Southeast United States. Anjali completed a Master’s in Organizational Change Management in 2013 and a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development in 2020 focused on settler climate activists and solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Anjali can be reached at anjali@cape.ca.

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Directrice générale

Anjali a commencé à s’engager dans l’activisme climatique en tant que première présidente du Conseil de la Coalition canadienne des jeunes pour le climat (CCJC) alors qu’elle travaillait comme coordinatrice nationale du projet Sustainable Campuses à la Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC). Après son séjour à la SYC, elle a travaillé pour l’Energy Action Coalition (maintenant Power Shift Network), basée aux États-Unis. Elle a ensuite travaillé en tant que directrice intérimaire du Southern Energy Network, une organisation de jeunesse pour le climat travaillant dans le sud-est des États-Unis. Anjali a obtenu une maîtrise en gestion du changement organisationnel en 2013 et en 2020 elle a terminé son doctorat en éducation des adultes et développement communautaire, axé sur les activistes climatiques coloniaux et la solidarité avec les peuples autochtones.

Vous pouvez communiquer avec Anjali à anjali@cape.ca.

Dr. Jane E. McArthur

Toxics Campaign Director

Jane has a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Justice, and an M.A. in Communication and Social Justice from the University of Windsor. She has twenty-five years of experience working on issues related to environmental and occupational health, rooted in community-based health research and advocacy with a view to prevention. Past projects include the “Risk Exploration Project”, “Living and Working in Essex and Kent Counties”, and “Lifetime Histories Breast Cancer Research Study.” Jane’s dissertation research examined how women exposed to breast cancer risks understand those risks and the actions they see necessary for prevention.

Jane can be reached at jane@cape.ca

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Directrice de la campagne sur les substances toxiques

Jane est titulaire d’un doctorat en sociologie et justice sociale, et d’une maîtrise en communication et justice sociale de l’Université de Windsor. Elle a vingt-cinq ans d’expérience dans les questions liées à la santé environnementale et professionnelle, ancrée dans la recherche et la défense de la santé communautaire dans une optique de prévention. Parmi ses projets antérieurs, citons le “Risk Exploration Project”, “Living and Working in Essex and Kent Counties” et “Lifetime Histories Breast Cancer Research Study”. Dans le cadre de sa thèse, Jane a étudié la manière dont les femmes exposées aux risques de cancer du sein comprennent ces risques et les actions qu’elles jugent nécessaires pour la prévention.

Vous pouvez joindre Jane à jane@cape.ca.

Pamela Daoust

National Communications Director and Quebec Coordinator

Pamela combines over ten years of experience in communications and public relations and has honed her skills in raising awareness with the general public and elected officials in regards to environmental protection, public health, and social inequalities.

It was during a mission with Oxfam-Québec, as a communications officer in Peru, that Pamela fully grasped the importance of increasing awareness of the consequences of climate change and pollution on health. This experience left a profound impact on her professional and personal involvement. She is involved in many working committees and communities of practice in the environmental and climate sectors in Quebec and across Canada.

Pamela can be reached at pamela@cape.ca

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Directrice nationale des communications et coordonnatrice pour le Québec

Pamela cumule plus de dix ans d’expérience en communications et en relations publiques et a perfectionné ses compétences en matière de sensibilisation du grand public et des élus à la protection de l’environnement, à la santé publique et aux inégalités sociales.

C’est lors d’une mission avec Oxfam-Québec, à titre d’agente de communication au Pérou, que Pamela a saisi l’importance de sensibiliser la population aux conséquences des changements climatiques et de la pollution sur la santé. Cette expérience a laissé un impact profond sur son implication professionnelle et personnelle. Elle participe à de nombreux comités de travail et communautés de pratique dans les secteurs de l’environnement et du climat au Québec et à la grandeur du Canada.

On peut joindre Pamela à pamela@cape.ca.

Natalie Ethier

Operations and Technology Manager

Natalie has worked with environmental NGOs, philanthropic organizations, and independent consultants across Canada, including GreenPAC, Clean Economy Fund, and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Prior to joining CAPE, she worked as an independent contractor providing administrative and executive support to leaders who are committed to accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. Natalie continues to work with Glave Strategies, one of Canada’s leading climate-solutions communicators.

Natalie can be reached at natalie@cape.ca

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Directrice des opérations et de la technologie

Natalie a travaillé avec des ONG environnementales, des organisations philanthropiques et des consultants indépendants à travers le Canada, y compris GreenPAC, Clean Economy Fund et ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Avant de se joindre à l’ACME, elle a travaillé à titre d’entrepreneure indépendante, offrant un soutien administratif et exécutif aux leaders qui s’engagent à accélérer la transition vers une économie à faible émission de carbone. Natalie continue de travailler avec Glave Strategies, l’un des principaux communicateurs de solutions climatiques au Canada.

Vous pouvez joindre Natalie à natalie@cape.ca.

Dr. Joe Vipond

CAPE Board President 

Joe Vipond has worked as an emergency physician for twenty years, currently at the Rockyview General Hospital.  He has been active on the climate crisis since learning of its dire repercussions nine years ago. His first advocacy campaign was as a spokesperson for the Alberta Coal Phase-Out movement, and more recently, the Canadian Coal Phase-Out network, and these have had an impact on approximately 66 MT of greenhouse gas emissions, or 9% of Canada’s total GHGs. He is the President of the national charity Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.  He is also the co-founder and co-chair of the local non-profit the Calgary Climate Hub.  In non-climate advocacy, he co-founded the COVID advocacy groups Masks4Canada and ProtectOurProvinceAlberta. Joe grew up in Calgary and continues to live there with his wife and two young daughters.

Dr. Melissa Lem

President-Elect

Dr. Melissa Lem is a Vancouver family physician who also works in rural and northern communities within Canada. Director of PaRx, Canada’s national nature prescription program powered by the BC Parks Foundation, she is a long-time advocate for the health benefits of time spent in nature and ecosystem conservation. She has been involved in advocacy and policy work on a broad range of issues including climate change, heat illness, wildfires, fracking and LNG, air pollution, active transportation, toxics, and sustainable health care.

Currently a senior writer for the CBC, she was the resident medical expert on CBC TV’s hit lifestyle show Steven and Chris for four seasons and continues to appear on-air as a regular contributor to CTV News. Her writing on the environment and human well-being has also been published by national media including the Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, The Narwhal, National Observer, and Alternatives Journal.

Dr. Lem was the inaugural winner of University College’s Young Alumni of Influence Award at the University of Toronto, a 2020 Joule Innovation grant recipient from the Canadian Medical Association, a 2021 World Parks Week Ambassador, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Courtney Howard

CAPE Past President

Howard is a Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia and McGill University-trained Emergency Room Physician who practices in Yellowknife, in Canada’s subarctic.

Motivated by work on a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) pediatric malnutrition project in Djibouti, and by climate-related health impacts on her Northern patient population, she led the Northwest Territories Medical Association team in the successful campaign to have the Canadian Medical Association divest from fossil fuels.

As president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) she helps to coordinate MD-advocacy on climate-health across Canada and has been involved in work on active transport, plant-rich diets, integrating health impact assessments into environmental assessments, carbon pricing, coal phase-out, and the health impacts of fracking.

She helps to coordinate medical education on the ecological determinants of health as chair of the committee for allied health professionals on the Ecological Determinants Group on Education associated with the Canadian Public Health Association, and is the North American Co-Chair of the World Family Doctor’s (WONCA) working group on the Environment.

In Yellowknife, she is a board member for Ecology North and is the local medical lead for the Ecology-North-supported “SOS-Summers of Smoke” research project into the health effects of wildfires, which she is writing up under the direction of Dr James Orbinski.

In a previous life she led the first randomized controlled-trial comparing menstrual cups to tampons—see FLOW-Finding Lasting Options for Women. (they work and result in a lot less waste. Try one!)

Courtney was the primary author on the 2017 Canadian Brief for the Lancet Countdown on Climate Change on behalf of the Canadian Public Health Association.  She represents CAPE on the board of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, most recently at COP23, where she presented on behalf of the health community at the Canada-UK Powering Past Coal announcement.

rMost recently, Courtney joined the board of Health in Harmony and is heading to Borneo to do clinical teaching at ASRI’s clinic site, and to connect her love of global health with an exploration of planetary health in the field. Check out her TEDx Talk here.

Dr. Larry Barzelai

CAPE Board Member

Dr. Larry Barzelai is a family doctor in Vancouver and is the head of CAPE’s B.C. chapter.

Helen Boyd, RN

CAPE Board Member

Helen is a Registered Nurse and hails from Quebec. She has worked in Alberta, the Yukon Territory, Switzerland and New Zealand as a Critical Care and the Emergency Room nurse. She was a Clinical Assistant at the UBC School of Nursing for seven years. As a clinician in the field of Mental Health and Addictions, she has the opportunity to speak to the Eco-anxiety caused by our changing climate. She is the BC Representative for the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment (CANE) and embraces this opportunity to work in partnership with fellow healthcare providers of CAPE to improve our Planetary Health.

Helen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the University of British Columbia and a Masters degree in Counselling from Gonzaga University, Spokane Washington.

Firmly dedicated to social justice, she spent a decade as a community nurse advocating for the rights of individuals who are homeless. In 2009, she founded the Care-A-Van, an innovative nurse-led mobile healthcare clinic delivering services directly to the streets to our homeless population. She recognizes how these individuals are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.

In 2018, she founded the Comox Valley Nurses for Health & the Environment. Some initiatives spearheaded by this group include increasing awareness about the health impacts of air pollution particulates PM2.5 caused by wood smoke, taking action by facilitating events that encourage the electrification of transportation, advocating for bans on single-use plastics, and operationalizing Project Drawdown solutions locally.

She is passionately committed to conserving and enriching our natural environment for generations to come. She acknowledges the richness of Indigenous culture and explores ways to implement true reconciliation. Helen works closely with community advocates to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) regionally.

In 2012, the College of Registered Nurses of BC recognized her efforts with the Award of Advocacy.  She is also the recipient of the 2013 British Columbia Community Achievement Award.

In her free time, Helen enjoys volunteering with environmental groups that concentrate on river and forest restoration projects as well as food gleaning programs. She now lives on the unceded Territories of the K’omox First Nations on Vancouver Island with her husband, daughter and son.

Dr. Samantha Green

CAPE Board Member

Dr. Samantha Green is a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and at Inner City Health Associates in Toronto. She is a Board Member with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and Faculty Lead in Climate Change & Health at the University of Toronto’s Department of Family & Community Medicine. Her clinical work focuses on marginalized populations, especially those experiencing homelessness, those involved in the criminal justice system, and newcomers. She advocates for climate action with the aim of improving the health of her patients and community.

Dr. Ojistoh Horn

CAPE Board Member

Bio to come.

Felix Martineau

CAPE Board Member

Felix holds a Bachelor in Business from the University of Sherbrooke and a Masters degree in Accounting from the University of Sherbrooke. 

Having grown up in a family of health workers, Felix is interested in the link between health and the environment. He is hopeful that his financial and managerial expertise combined with his knowledge of the medical sector will help CAPE in its pursuit of a greener and healthier Canada.

Dr. Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers

CAPE Board Member

Dr. Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers is currently completing her training as a family doctor at University de Montréal. She shares a vision in which doctors are socially accountable to the communities they serve and in which they play a crucial role in reducing social inequities. She is the past vice-president of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA), the world’s largest and oldest medical students group, where she has been the voice of 1,3 million students in 130 countries. Over the past years, she has collaborated with the World Health Organization; has advocated nationally and internationally for a greater recognition of the health co-benefits of climate action; has lead several capacity-building workshops around the globe; and has been featured on several medias, providing insightful comments on climate related issues. She also sits on the board of Force Jeunesse, an organisation dedicated to intergenerational equity. Her outstanding leadership has been recognized by her peers at several occasions: the Judy Wasserheit Young Leader Award in 2017 for her exceptional commitment to improve health globally and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) 150th Anniversary Award for Professionalism in 2018. She is the current chair the Québec chapter of CAPE, the Association québécoise des médecins pour l’environnement. In her free time, she enjoys talking about politics, reading new books and discovering microbreweries.

Dr. Éric Notebaert

CAPE Board Member

MD – MSc Biomedical Sciences – Specialist in Emergency Medicine
Emergency physician CIUSSS North of the Island of Montreal and ÉVAQ (ambulance plane)
Clinician Researcher, Sacré Coeur Hospital in Montreal
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, U de Mtl

Vice President, Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment
President of the Environment Committee, Association of Emergency Physicians of Quebec
Chairman of the Sustainable Health Committee, Francophone Doctors of Canada

Dr. Notebaert has worked in health and environment on a very large number of files over the past forty years: public and active transport, urban planning, fight against heat islands, energy issues (renewable energy, hydrocarbons, hydraulic fracturing, nuclear energy), agriculture, and pesticides, impacts on health and the environment of large industrial projects and ‘going green’ for hospitals.

This synthesis of knowledge, scientific popularization, participation in several federal, provincial, and municipal commissions, and position papers was carried out within the framework of the mandates of the Canadian Association and the Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment or collaborations with various groups of citizens, several non-profit organizations and universities, both Canadian and Quebecois.

Dr. George Tjensvoll Kitching

CAPE Board Member

George is a Norwegian and Canadian of British ancestry. He is commencing training as a family physician at Queen’s University in Kingston. George graduated medical school at Western University in Windsor and holds an MSc. in Public Health from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. George was 2019-2020 co-chair of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students: Health and Environment Adaptive Response Taskforce which seeks to incorporate training around the health impacts of climate change into the medical curriculum.