Making a better place

Dr. McMurtry addresses the first international symposium to examine the adverse health effects of wind energy.

Dr. Robert McMurtry awarded the Order of Canada

They desire a better country. This is the principle that underpins the Order of Canada. Last Thursday Prince Edward County’s own Dr. Robert McMurtry, was one of select group of citizens recognized for their efforts in making our country a better place.

McMurtry has spent much of his career as an advisor to provincial, territorial and federal governments on health policy—most notably as a special advisor to Roy Romanow’s 2002 Commission on the Future of Health Care.

In 2003 he advised the new McGuinty government on the transition to power. But in recent years he has taken direct aim at this government on the issue of industrial wind turbines.

Specifically, McMurtry wants the McGuinty government to conduct a comprehensive arms-length epidemiological study to examine the effect industrial wind turbines have on the health of people who live near them. He argues that this work should have been done before these massive generators were hoisted into the sky, and he insists that a moratorium be enacted now on any future wind energy until this investigation is done.

He is at the front line of this struggle and has met with the folks—from the very young to the aged—living near industrial wind turbines who endure a range of symptoms. He organized the first international symposium gathering scientists, physicians and researchers from around the world who are looking into the health effects industrial wind turbines. He also formed the Society of Wind Vigilance, an online resource that centralizes current research, news and medical investigation in one place.

He has also testified in Ian Hanna’s judicial review of the Green Energy Act and at the Environmental Review Tribunal examining the Suncor Kent Breeze industrial wind project near Chatham.

Before taking up his latest struggle, McMurtry built an illustrious career as a surgeon, educator and policy advisor.

Upon graduation from the University of Toronto in 1965 McMurtry spent two years working in Africa—in South Africa and Uganda.

Back in Toronto he founded and directed Canada’s first trauma centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto.

In 1987 McMurtry was named Professor and Chair of Surgery as well as Chief of Surgery at the University of Calgary. He returned to Ontario as Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario in 1992.

He acted as a policy advisor to the deputy minister and health minister of Canada in the early ’90s. In 2002, he was tasked with examining and making recommendations on Nunuavut’s health system.The next year he was appointed as special advisor to Roy Romanow’s Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada.

McMurtry received the Presidential Award of Excellence from the Canadian Orthopaedic Association the same year.

McMurtry joined such luminaries as Malcom Gladwell, Eugene Levy and Hayley Wickenheiser on being invested into the Order of Canada last week.

McMurtry was recognized by the Governor General for his “leadership and vision in helping to strengthen health care delivery in Canada.”

His insight and leadership continue today in his spirited defence of those who have been made unwell by ill-considered and illplanned wind energy policy in this province and elsewhere.

He has spent a career understanding the gaps in health care systems and urging solutions to improve the health of Canadians. He wasn’t looking for a fight with the provincial government at this stage of his career, but as he said in his testimony earlier this year in Chatham, neither could he turn his back on the victims of industrial wind factories.

“I did not intend to become the medical person who forwards this issue,” said McMurtry, “but, by necessity have undertaken to do so.”

McMurtry has made this country a better place. He has made a career of solving the big problems he has encountered—a career worthy of the Order of Canada.