Public Health Ethics Advisory Committee of Ontario (PHEACO)

The Public Health Ethics Advisory Committee of Ontario (PHEACO) provides expert advice to Public Health Ontario on ethical issues related to public health, including emergency response, disease surveillance, health promotion and prevention, program implementation, and the equitable distribution of vaccines and antivirals.

Established in November 2025, at the request of the Ministry of Health, the Committee brings together diverse ethics expertise based on knowledge, skills, and experience.

Members

Maxwell J. Smith, Chair
PhD, MSc
Dr. Maxwell Smith is a Bioethicist, Associate Professor, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University. He also serves as the Director of Western's Centre for Bioethics, Associate Director of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, and holds cross-appointments in Western's Department of Philosophy, Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health, and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. In addition, Dr. Smith co-chairs the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Public Health Ethics Consultative Group, serves as a member of the Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, and routinely advises other health authorities, including the World Health Organization. He completed a PhD in Public Health Sciences and Bioethics at the University of Toronto, a Master of Science in Bioethics at Union Graduate College and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He completed post-doctoral training at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. Dr. Smith has published widely in public health ethics, and specifically on infectious disease ethics and the ethical dimensions of advancing health equity and social justice in public health.

Nancy Ondrusek, Vice Chair
PhD, MSc
Dr. Nancy Ondrusek is an Adjunct Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She has over 30 years of administrative and research experience in research ethics and bioethics and from 2018 to 2025 served as Director, Research and Ethics Services at Public Health Ontario. Dr. Ondrusek has led a variety of initiatives to advance research ethics practice. Her committee work includes membership on Ontario's COVID-19 Bioethics Table, and developer and Chair of the COVID-19 Public Health Ethics Working Group. Dr. Ondrusek holds an MSc and a PhD from the Collaborative Program in Bioethics at the University of Toronto, and an MSc in Genetics from Brock University.

Ross Upshur
BA (Hons.), MA, MD, MSc, MCFP, FRCPC, FCAHS
Dr. Upshur is currently the Dalla Lana Chair in Clinical Public Health, Head of the Division of Clinical Public Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and Associate Director of the Collaborative Centre for Climate Health and Sustainable Care. At the University of Toronto, he is a Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Family and Community Medicine, affiliate member of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, a Member of the Joint Centre for Bioethics and co-Director of the University of Toronto WHO Collaborating Centre in Bioethics. He has served on ethics committees for the World Health Organization, Public Health Agency of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (Chair 2017-2024), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (Chair 2012-2017) and the Canadian Medical Association. Professor Upshur is an elected Fellow of the Hastings Center and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Barry Pakes
MD MPH DTMH PhD FCFP FRCPC
Dr. Barry Pakes is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine specialist physician and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, Program. He served as the Medical Officer of Health at York Region Public Health for several years during the pandemic. He is Program Director of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the Global Health Lead for Medical Education at the University of Toronto. He also works clinically in a variety of urban and rural settings. Dr. Pakes has degrees from Harvard, McGill and UofT, including a PhD in Public Health Ethics. His other recent public health leadership roles include Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health in Nunavut, and Associate Medical Officer of Health in Middlesex London Health Unit, Halton Region and Peel Region. He has experience working globally, in Northern and indigenous communities, as well as at the World Health Organization – where he led work on pandemic ethics frameworks. His main areas of interest are in public health and global health ethics, vaccinology, health systems coordination and public health halacha.

Roojin Habibi
Roojin Habibi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) and Research Director of Global Health Law at the Global Strategy Lab, jointly based at York University and the University of Ottawa. Her research bridges international law, public health law, and human rights, with a focus on normative interpretation and change in global health law and governance. In this regard, Dr. Habibi has served on several expert panels, including the WHO Director General’s Review Committee regarding amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005), where she provided technical recommendations to WHO Member States on more than 300 proposed amendments to the Regulations. She holds a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Ottawa, a specialization in transnational law from the University of Geneva Faculty of Law, a Master’s of Science in Global Health from McMaster University, and a PhD in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where she was also a 2022 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar.

A.M. Viens
PhD
Dr. A.M. Viens is an Associate Professor and York Research Chair in Population Health Ethics and Law at York University, where he previously served as the Inaugural Director of the School of Global Health. His research focuses on population health ethics and law, with particular expertise in legal epidemiology, regulatory governance, and the ethical dimensions of public and global health policy. His work examines how legal and normative frameworks shape responses to infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, disasters and emergencies, and health promotion. Dr. Viens holds degrees in philosophy and law from the University of Toronto, the University of Oxford, and the University of London. He is co-author of Public Health Law: Ethics, Governance, and Regulation (Routledge, 2017). He is an Honorary Member of the UK Faculty of Public Health, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health and the Royal Society of Medicine. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Health Care Analysis and has published extensively on public health ethics, governance, and population health law.

Carrie Bernard
Dr. Carrie Bernard is a community-based family physician who has practiced for the past 25 years in the growing multicultural community of Brampton, Ontario. Her experiences working for Médecins Sans Frontières, led Dr. Bernard to pursue her MPH at the University of Toronto, focusing on global health, ethics, and epidemiology. She has academic appointments (Assistant Professor) at The University of Toronto (U of T), McMaster University, and Toronto Metropolitan University where she teaches medical trainees. She has held various leadership roles at McMaster and U of T, with her driving passion being empowering community-based family physicians to expand their scopes in both clinical and academic settings. She is currently the CPD and Partnerships Lead for the Division of Mental Health and Addictions at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, U of T. She served as on the board of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and finished her term as President in November 2025. Her research interests focus on ethics in medical practice, and she is a member of the Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group, a multidisciplinary team of researchers and practitioners in Canada who explore ethical issues related to humanitarian health care work.

Sally Bean
Sally Bean is the Director of Ethics & Policy at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is a member of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Sally earned a B.A. in English and Philosophy, an M.A. in Bioethics and Public Policy, and a Juris Doctorate. After law school, Sally completed a two-year fellowship in Clinical & Organizational Ethics through the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. She lectures in topics related to bioethics and law, organizational ethics, public health ethics, and health policy. She has published in areas pertaining to public health ethics, health policy, health resource allocation, and emerging health technologies.