When we founded the Canadian Association of Environmental Physicians in 1994, we were “a group of environmentalists who happened to be doctors.”
I have co-founded many organizations, but I am particularly proud to have helped establish CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment) 30 years ago.
In the early 1990s, the three of us independently began developing the idea of founding a physicians' organization focused on planetary health.
Warren Bell was and remains a family physician in Salmon Arm, while Tea Guidotti was a professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Alberta (who has since moved to Washington, DC), and I was an independent public health physician in Toronto.
Warren said, “We're a group of environmentalists who happen to be doctors.”
In my work in the early 1990s, I, like Warren, advocated for the establishment of an association of environmental physicians, and in 1992 I served with Tee on the Canadian Public Health Association's Task Force on Human and Ecosystem Health.
So we got together in mid-1994, and by the end of that year we incorporated CAPE and became the Canadian chapter of the International Association of Physicians for the Environment.
We started small and our work was all volunteer, but we used our voice to make a significant impact.
In our 1996 report to the National Health Forum on the importance of ecosystem health as a determinant of human health, we stated: “As physicians, we are concerned both professionally and personally about how environmental degradation affects the health of our patients.”
But we also clarified CAPE's broader objectives: “Our objective as an organization is to better understand the health impacts of environmental challenges and global change, to educate physicians and the public about these health impacts, and to promote effective change in the way Canadians respond to environmental challenges and global change, thereby protecting the health of our nation.”
Today, CAPE is an established organization with 18 staff and 10 regional committees that continues to pursue its vision of “making the health of people and planet a priority in Canadian society and policy.”
CAPE does this by “bringing together trusted voices of medical expertise, medical science, and evidence” and over the past 30 years, CAPE has “engaged more than 25,000 supporters, of whom nearly 16,000 have taken action in campaigns.”
CAPE has an effective and powerful voice on a range of environmental issues and its latest strategic plan includes the three components of the UN’s “triple global crisis” – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – as well as a broader policy framework on social justice and equity and the need to create well-being economies and societies.
CAPE's highlights in the 2020s include becoming a founding partner of PaRx, Canada's first national natural prescription program, advocating for the passage of federal climate responsibility legislation and persuading Quebec to reject new LNG projects. CAPE also worked with other organizations to advocate for the strengthening of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which for the first time recognized the right to a healthy environment.
The legislation also updates another CAPE campaign priority, the Toxics Framework, to require the federal government to consider the cumulative effects of toxins and their impacts on vulnerable populations.
In 2022, CAPE launched a campaign to ban fossil fuel advertising, and earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined the call, calling on countries to ban advertising for fossil fuel companies.
Additionally, CAPE has filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau to investigate greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry, and has filed a complaint with the Canadian Advertising Bureau about misleading LNG promotional advertising.
The latter led to a recent ruling that ads funded by Canada Action were “inaccurate, misleading and distorted the true meaning of the scientists' statements.”
Over the past 30 years, many Canadians and people around the world have benefited from CAPE's work to protect the planet and improve human health.
It is hard to think of a more important mission today, so it is vital that CAPE continues this important work in the future.
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Dr Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior research fellow in the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria.
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