In September 2006, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) had just 400 members. Just two and a half years later, over 4,000 doctors belong to the group.

"It's been an exciting time for us," said executive director Gideon Forman. "We think it's a very exciting development that doctors are playing a leadership role in the environmental movement,” he said. “Docs are trusted so much by the public, and they have huge credibility with policy-makers. We have access to decision-makers that other groups don’t.”

The medical profession’s interest in environmentalism is relatively recent, said Mr. Forman. Though CAPE’s membership grew 10-fold in the last two and a half years, it didn’t attract a great deal of doctors’ involvement in its previous 13 years.

Founded in 1993 by a small group of Canadian physicians, CAPE was, in its early years, “a wish, not a reality,” as the group matter-of-factly describes its origin. Its members over the years have included some physicians with impressive credentials in environmentalism, including Dr. Trevor Hancock, the first leader of the Green Party of Canada and CAPE’s chairperson earlier this decade; and Dr. Jean Zigby, a Montreal family physician who won a 2006 Canadian Environmental Award and is now CAPE’s vice-president.

CAPE had a public profile before it grew within the medical profession. In 2004, with the group’s membership at just 110 doctors, Dr. Kapil Khatter, then the executive director and now the board president, complained to the National Review of Medicine, “In the greater community we have a solid and credible reputation as a doctors’ group, but in the medical community we suffer a huge lack of awareness.”

Since then, times have changed. CAPE’s growth has been bolstered in large part by the growing public awareness about the environmentalist movement, and doctors have finally caught up.

Ontario’s Bill 64

CAPE played a major role in one of the most hotly debated environmental issues of the last few years: Ontario’s Bill 64, a province-wide ban on cosmetic pesticides (except in agriculture, forestry, golf courses, and for reasons of public health and safety). Along with the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ontario College of Family Physicians and many others, CAPE, which already had experience lobbying municipalities to enact bylaws banning pesticide use, was involved in pushing for the legislation. The law was passed last year and comes into effect this spring.

Mr. Forman attributes a portion of the medical profession’s newfound enthusiasm for CAPE to the group’s work on Bill 64. “People were concerned about this, these poisons close to home,” he said. “The fact that we worked on it attracted a lot of interest.” CAPE is now working on a similar anti-pesticide lobbying campaign in New Brunswick.

Green medicine

CAPE has also been involved for years in a group called the Canadian Coalition for Green Healthcare, in an effort to make the practice of medicine less environmentally damaging. The coalition includes CAPE, the Canadian Medical Association, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, and other medical groups, alongside hospitals and environmental organizations who work together “to minimize the adverse environmental and human health impacts of Canada’s healthcare system.” Lobbying efforts by CAPE have urged hospitals and clinics to eliminate plastic tubing made with phthalates and older thermometers and blood-pressure cuffs that contain mercury, and to stop incinerating medical waste, which releases greenhouse gases into the air. Vice-president Jean Zigby is currently leading an initiative to encourage healthcare facilities to establish “green purchasing” practices.

Tackling the oil sands

The Athabasca oil sands extraction projects in Alberta are another target of CAPE’s criticism. “Minimally we would like to see moratorium on new development, and ultimately we’d like to see
a move away from oil” in favour of wind and solar power, said Mr. Forman. “The jarring thing about the tar sands is that it’s using huge amounts of natural gas, which is relatively clean, to liberate very, very dirty oil.”

CAPE’s disapproval of the oil sands projects reflects its desire to expand its influence on climate change policy. To that end, CAPE is now looking into the possibility of partnering with a larger organization — Mr. Forman suggested the David Suzuki Foundation and WWF as examples of potential partners — to lend medical expertise to Canadian efforts to fight climate change.

If not doctors, then who?

Dr. David Swann, a former CAPE member who was elected leader of the Alberta Liberal Party in December, was impressed with the group’s recent growth. “It’s absolutely vital that people with scientific credibility and public trust come together and find ways to influence the public system in interest of public health,” he said. “If not doctors, then who is going to make that kind of strong statement?”

CAPE’s growth hasn’t been even across the country, however. Only 214, or about 5%, of the members live in Quebec, for instance, and the group’s website, www.cape.ca, and newsletters are only available in English. “They’re not as visible in Alberta as I would like to see them,” said Dr. Swann. “If I can help with that, I certainly will.”