Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Honourable members, I'm very honoured to be here today and very glad of the opportunity to present my concerns about Fort Chipewyan. My name is John O'Connor, and I'm a family physician currently based in Nova Scotia. My practice is divided be

Environment committee  I've said again and again that I am just a simple family physician.

Environment committee  There are two questions there. First, on the studies that were done, there was the 2006 deceased-file analysis, which was incomplete. Alberta Health and Health Canada confirmed that. It didn't have complete data, yet they went ahead and gave the community the all-clear. The Alb

Environment committee  That study followed Dr. Timoney's presentation in November 2007 to the community, with his documentation of the toxins that his analysis had detected. Dr. Timoney's presentation to the community was followed, probably a day or two later, by Health Canada's advising the community

Environment committee  That is a good question. I would imagine, and I think Andrew would probably be able to add to this, that it would involve including what has already been documented by the likes of Dr. Timoney and Dr. David Schindler from the University of Alberta. It would also need a fairly in-

Environment committee  It's funny you should ask. When the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Downstream premiered in Canada in Fort Chipewyan in March of this year, we were invited up to the community hall. At the end of the meeting, I was approached by a representative of a major stakeholder in the tar sa

Environment committee  I was aware that there was a visit planned, chiefly by Alberta Health Services, I believe, with some representation in one form or other from Health Canada. The meeting has taken place. The issues laid before the health board in the community basically involved their being asked

Environment committee  Since the documentation has been looked at in more depth, what I suspected...I must give you a bit of background. Cholangiocarcinoma is a difficult diagnosis to make. It comes on very quickly. Frequently, the very first symptom and sign is that the patient presents jaundice, an

Environment committee  Do you want to go first, Andrew?

Environment committee  I've had some discussions with some experts outside Alberta as to how this could be tackled, simply because the window of opportunity for a base line is long gone. There are some suggestions that there be a presumption that the community was healthy to begin with. One thing, whic

Environment committee  My exact qualifications are Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Obstetrics, and Bachelor of Surgery, and I have the LMCC from the federal licensing board.

Environment committee  I've been labelled as that.

Environment committee  From 2002 to 2005.

Environment committee  That's right.

Environment committee  No, I didn't do a study.