Board of Directors

Linda Rothstein (LL.B. University of Toronto) is partner of Paliare Roland Barristers, a law practice with expertise in class actions, commercial litigation, professional liability, public law and appeals.  In addition to serving as Vice-Chair of PHO’s Board of Directors, Linda serves as Chair of PHO’s Governance Standing Committee (GSC). She is also the Chair of the Law Foundation of Ontario.

She was lead commission counsel to the Goudge Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology and counsel to the Motherisk Independent Review. She previously served as a Toronto Regional Bencher of The Law Society of Upper Canada and was the recipient of the prestigious Law Society Medal and the “Award of Distinction” presented by the Toronto Lawyers’ Association.

Dr. John Garcia (Ph.D. University of Waterloo) is a Professor of Practice and Associate Director of Professional Graduate Programs at the School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo.

John has many years of experience working with government, private sector, voluntary health, and academic organizations to advance public health, health promotion, chronic disease prevention and tobacco control initiatives. He has served previously in the Ontario Public Service, with senior management responsibility for health promotion and chronic disease prevention initiatives.

Ford Ralph (M.B.A. York University) is a retired vice-president of Petro-Canada, where he was responsible for retail and wholesale operations across Canada. In a previous role as Vice-President refining and supply, Ford initiated the development of Petro-Canada’s Corporate National Emergency Response Team and Corporate Crisis Management Team and acted as National Incident Commander for the Team. He holds the Professional Engineer (P. Eng.) designation and the Professional ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Ford recently served on the Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc. Board of Directors and was a member of the Audit Committee, the Investment Review Committee and the Strategic Investments Oversight Committee. He is a past governor on the Shaw Festival Board of Governors and was a member of the Finance and Audit Committee, Governance Committee, and Strategic Planning Committee.

Margaret Flynn (RN, Non-Practising) has been employed in nursing in both rural and urban communities. Throughout her career, she has held frontline, senior and middle management level positions in both the private and public sectors. She has training and experience in nursing, management, education, health promotion, primary care and addiction treatment.

Margaret most recently served as the Director of Primary and Community Health at Belleville and Quinte West Community Health Centre. Prior to that, she was Patient Care Coordinator at Gateway Community Health Centre. She has served as the Director of Nursing at a long term care facility and a community nursing agency. Her work in addiction treatment included serving as the Director of Nursing and Patient Care at Bellwood Health Services, and Nurse Counsellor at the Donwood Institute. She also had the opportunity to assess the performance of health organizations and identify opportunities to improve patient safety and promote quality improvement as a surveyor with Accreditation Canada. Since her retirement in January 2018, she has remained interested in quality improvement activities.