Business as usual? Not a chance! A glimpse into the future of environmental public health in Canada

Abstract

When Editor Andrew Papadopoulos asked if I would be interested in writing about the future of public health in Canada, I agreed without a second thought. I entered public health in the United Kingdom (1964) as a first-year public health student, and in 50 years the ‘‘basics’’ of protecting public health and safety have remained unchanged: hygienic food, clean water, safe housing, effective waste disposal, pest control, and infection control. . . No, I haven’t forgotten education, research, planning, legislation, and a host of applied sciences; my point is that the basics are applicable at any time and place. Here’s an even more important point: the basics don’t change, but the ‘‘contexts’’ certainly will, and probably far sooner and more drastically than most of us realize. For the purposes of the discussion to follow, I have deliberately included a broader concept of ‘‘inspectors’’, ‘‘practitioners’’, and ‘‘environmental health professionals’’ to include Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and federal officers as well as provincial and regional staff. This is to acknowledge a logical continuum of health protection personnel in Canada, recognizing that current legislative and administrative frameworks determine who-does-what.