Vanessa Gruben takes over as director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics
Canadian Health Coalition board member Vanessa Gruben is the new director of the University of Ottawa’s Centre of Health Law, Policy and Ethics, the largest academic health law and policy centre in Canada.
Professor Gruben, a recognized scholar of health and the law, has been a core member of the Centre since it was established in 2015. The Centre’s inaugural Director, Colleen Flood, left the position last year to become the Dean of Law at Queen’s University.
According to the Centre, Gruben’s scholarship “probes some of the most difficult contemporary legal and ethical issues related to health care, including assisted reproduction, harm reduction, organ donation and transplantation, and health care professional self-regulation.”
Gruben is the co-editor of the 5th edition of Canada’s foremost health law text, Canadian Health Law and Policy (LexisNexis, 2017). She is also a co-author of the book, Families and the Law: Cases and Commentary, Third Edition (Captus Press).
After graduating as a James Kent Scholar from Columbia University’s Master of Laws program and clerking for Chief Justice Richard of the Federal Court of Appeal and Justice Bastarache of the Supreme Court of Canada, Gruben joined the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law.
Gruben teaches a variety of courses, including reproductive health law, access to health care, and public health law. Some of her students come to the Canadian Health Coalition as interns through the Pro Bono Students Canada. She has acted as the students’ lawyer supervisor, guiding the students’ research on health care policies.
When she is not researching or teaching, she is serving on the board of the Canadian Health Coalition as co-treasurer as well as on the board of AMS Healthcare, and putting her legal expertise to use to advance human rights. Gruben has appeared on behalf of Amnesty International Canada before the Supreme Court of Canada in Charkaoui v. Canada, [2007] 1 S.C.R. 350; Charkaoui v. Canada, [2008] 2 S.C.R. 326; Khadr v. Canada, [2010] SCC 3; and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
The Canadian Health Coalition is excited to be organizing a return of a research roundtable with Gruben and the Centre of Health Law, Policy and Ethics on June 20 at the University of Ottawa.
The research roundtable will mark the 40th anniversary of the Canada Health Act. The roundtable will discuss the challenges posed to upholding the criteria and conditions of the Canada Health Act given the crisis being experienced by health care workers and patients, and the risks posed from increased privatization of insured health services by some provinces and territories. Social determinants of health as well as racism and systemic inequities in health care will also be discussed.
We can expect more big things from the University of Ottawa’s Centre of Health Law, Policy and Ethics under Gruben’s leadership.
Tracy Glynn is the National Director of Projects and Operations for the Canadian Health Coalition
