The Empire Club of Canada
Thursday, November 7, 2024
We are honoured to welcome the Honourable Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Ontario’s Minister of Health, who will deliver a speech at our Fertility event.
Couples undergoing fertility treatment can be impacted by a mix of emotions and there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions to a patient’s needs, with many factors outside our control. The promise of parenthood often clashes with the stark realities of financial barriers, especially when considering the high costs of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other treatments.
With a recent (2022) study indicating that one in six Canadians experience infertility, there is clearly a need for greater fertility care in Canada. We also live in a changing world where talking more openly about fertility has become mainstream, while on the other hand, political forces in the U.S. have lobbied for fertility treatments to be banned altogether.
The Empire Club of Canada is proud to present The Future of Fertility — Access Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing World. This event will take a close look at fertility within our healthcare systems and its impact on people, examine the role of government in reducing financial burdens on families to improve access to fertility care, acknowledge that fertility access is integral to improve the population growth necessary to bolster our economy, and discuss what business can do to be supportive within Canada’s workplaces.
What is your business doing?
We are pleased to be joined by a panel of experts to talk about challenges and opportunities that will help continue to make improvements for Canadians requiring fertility treatment. This event will be moderated by Teri Hart, journalist and TV host, promising a dynamic and engaging conversation that you won’t want to miss!
Join us on November 7, 2024, for the Empire Club’s first-ever event focused on fertility.
Sylvia Jones is the Member of Provincial Parliament for Dufferin-Caledon.
She is currently Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, where her focus is building a more connected and convenient health care system for all Ontarians.
In her role, Minister Jones has worked with health care partners from across Ontario to:
• Introduce and pass the Your Health Act to ensure Ontarians have faster access to publicly-funded surgeries and procedures, while growing the health care workforce
• Introduce and pass the Convenient Care at Home Act to modernize and better integrate home care services
• Make the largest investment in pediatric care in the province’s history
• Connect over 300,000 more people to primary care through the largest expansion of primary care teams since they were established in Ontario
• Break down barriers to make it easier and faster for internationally and interprovincially educated health care workers to register and start working in Ontario
• Get shovels in the ground for over 50 hospital redevelopment projects that will add more than 3,000 new hospital beds within the next 10 years
Previously, Minister Jones served as Solicitor General, where she led Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout and championed public safety initiatives, including leading the country with a $307 million anti-human trafficking strategy and legislation.
She has lived in Dufferin-Caledon for over 30 years with her husband, David.
One of Canada’s most recognized and sought-after media personalities, Teri Hart is a multi-talented host, interviewer, critic and producer.
Currently appearing as the face of Super Channel with Teri Hart’s Super Channel Superpicks. Teri is also a frequent contributor to CBC’s national radio show “Commotion”. Teri was the face of The Movie Network for 19 years, the entertainment reporter for CITY News and Breakfast Television for 5 years and has also appeared on The Morning Show (Global), E-Talk and The Social (CTV).
Teri has been an advocate for the fertility community for over a decade, frequently discussing her own experiences being childfree not by choice on podcasts and panels and most recently was the honorary chair for the annual Fertility Matters 6K.
Follow Teri:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/terihart/?hl=en
X (Formerly Twitter) – https://twitter.com/TeriHart
As a keen relationship-builder, Zane lives and breathes political outreach and fertility advocacy. Having spent years working at Queen’s Park, he now works in government relations for one of Canada’s largest health care organizations.
Together with his wife Baden, they launched the blog Not My Tummy (But I’m Still Mummy!) in 2021 to chronicle their journey building a family with the help of a gestational surrogate. Their daughter Scottie was born in July, 2023 and they are in the midst of a sibling journey. For his work in advocating for equitable parental leave, and ensuring Canada’s latest Time-to-Attach legislation included parents by surrogacy, Zane was named Fertility Matters Canada’s 2022 Changemaker of the Year. Zane continues to advocate for fertility support by serving as the board chair for Conceivable Dreams – Ontario’s voice for fertility care.
Zane has an undergraduate degree from Carleton University’s Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs and a masters in Global Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies in the UK.
Dr. Meivys Garcia has been a fertility specialist since 2011. She is the medical director and senior partner of renowned fertility clinic, Markham Fertility
Dr. Garcia did a 5-year sub-specialty training at the University of Western Ontario. This led her to pursue a two-year Royal College Fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.
Her main interests are in unexplained infertility, immunological disorders leading to subfertility and fertility-preservation treatment.
Most recently, Dr Garcia was elected to the Board of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) where she will play a part in shaping the future of assisted reproduction in Canada. She is on the advisory board of Fertility Friends Foundation and Conceivable Dreams.
She is the co-host of popular show my Fertility Podcast, where she brings information to the public about all aspects of reproductive care.
When not at the office, you can find Dr. Garcia at home with her boys and her dog, either curled up with a book, journaling or sweating and singing at the top of her lungs on her peloton bike.
Maya leads the development and execution of our GB partnership, corporate development and venture investing strategy, in partnership with internal corporate development and venture investing teams. In addition, her team leads the development of opportunistic and growth focused strategies and the assessment of new markets and business opportunities in healthcare.
Prior to joining Manulife, Maya worked in management consulting for the last ~10 years, supporting a range of healthcare and life sciences organizations with identifying next-generation growth avenues and building future-focused business strategies. She has worked with a wide spectrum of industry players, including payers, providers, biopharma, digital health, and med device companies, supporting them with commercial strategy, corporate development, in-house capability building, and external partnership strategy.
Prior to management consulting, Maya worked as a pharmacist for NHS England, covering community and hospital pharmacies to deliver essential and advanced services for patient care.