Jane Philpott

Jane Pauline Philpott PC (née Little; born November 23, 1960) is a physician, academic administrator, and former Canadian politician who represented the riding of Markham—Stouffville in the House of Commons.

[2] Prior to entering politics, Philpott was a family physician known for promoting medical education in Africa, HIV/AIDS fundraising, refugee advocacy, and her work on the social determinants of health.

[6] She received a Bachelor of Science and medical training at University of Western Ontario, where she was granted a Doctorate of Medicine, graduating cum laude in 1984.

[10] She worked in Niger in West Africa from 1989 to 1998 with a faith-based non-governmental organization, where she practiced general medicine and developed a training program for village health workers.

[11][17][18][19] Philpott co-founded "A Coin for Every Country", an educational campaign geared to intermediate level classrooms to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

[citation needed] Philpott was named the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Director of the School of Medicine for Queen's University in early 2020.

[27] Philpott has advocated the national decriminalization of the simple possession of illicit drugs to help cope with the increasing number of overdose deaths.

[29] In early December 2020, Philpott and two colleagues from the medical establishment in Kingston advocated a type of "no-fault insurance" scheme for manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccine, in order to indemnify them and shift the burden to the federal government.

[31] Philpott also initiated the change to the QuARMS (Queen's Accelerated Route to Medical School) admissions policy, designating all 10 seats for Indigenous peoples and Black Canadians.

[41] On May 1, 2016, after the new government had been in office for six months, David Akin, Parliamentary Bureau Chief of the Toronto Sun, published a rating of the Liberal Cabinet's work to date in which Philpott was awarded an A+.

[56] Philpott became the inaugural Minister of Indigenous Services in a cabinet shuffle on August 28, 2017; she was succeeded by Ginette Petitpas Taylor at the Ministry of Health.

[57][58] On January 14, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved Philpott from her cabinet Indigenous Services portfolio to her new role as President of the Treasury Board.

[59] On March 4, 2019, Philpott resigned from her position in the cabinet as President of the Treasury Board, citing her inability to reconcile with the government's handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

[1] On August 14, 2019, Mario Dion, the Parliament of Canada's Ethics Commissioner, released a report that said Trudeau contravened section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould to drop a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin.

The report's analysis section discusses the topics of prosecutorial independence and the Shawcross doctrine (dual role of Attorney General) to draw the conclusion that the influence was improper and a violation of Conflict of Interest Act thereby validating Philpott's decision to resign from cabinet over the affair.

She also noted with regret that Dion was not granted "unfettered access to all information that could be relevant to the exercise" of his mandate, further stating that this is essential to ensure transparency and accountability for public office holders as it relates to conflicts of interest.

[3] In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, Philpott called for a national inquiry into long-term care facilities after a Canadian Armed Forces report on poor conditions in five Ontario homes that necessitated the deployment of military health personnel.

[70][71][72] In October 2024, Philpott was appointed by the Ontario provincial government of Doug Ford to take up a chair position in December of a task force on connecting Ontarians to primary-care doctors within five years.