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HOME >>ABOUT
CSH
Report to the Members of the Canadian Society of Homeopaths
From the Founding Board of Directors
Presented at the General Members' Meeting
November 24, 2006, Vancouver, BC
The Founding Board of the Canadian Society of Homeopaths is pleased to
announce the election of a new Board of Directors.
They are: Judi Adema from Smithers, BC; Juliana Barnard from
Halifax, NS; Lisa Decandia from Toronto, ON; Barbara Etcovitch from
Montreal, QC; Brenda Malin from the Battlefords, SK; Rami Shami from
Mississauga, ON; and Jo Twiss from White Rock, BC.
It is encouraging to note that these new Directors come from
across the country and will represent the interests of all our members
in Canada.
As the new Board looks forward to a new term of office, this Founding
Board looks back with satisfaction on a year of progressive
behind-the-scenes organization and a number of accomplishments.
Highlights of these achievements include:
●
Membership grew to over 360+ members
●
Registry of professional homeopaths and corresponding Professional
Standards committee created and developed throughout the year
● Members celebrated Homeopathy Awareness Week, April 10-17, across
Canada
● CSH awarded World Homeopathy Awareness Organization’s prize for most
successful Awareness campaign in the world!
● Board responded in detail to government proposals concerning Natural
Health Products and legislated
professional regulation in Ontario
● CSH Ontario members voted to authorize
Affiliate agreement with Ontario
Society of Homeopaths
● Provisional Affiliate agreements signed with Ontario Society of Homeopaths
and
West Coast Homeopathic
Society
●
National and international contacts established with many homeopathic
organizations
● Formal and informal alliances forged to monitor regulations and proposed
legislation by federal and provincial governments
●
Group professional liability (malpractice) insurance plan negotiated for
our Registered members
● Natural Health Products Directorate (NHPD) accepted CSH proposals that
will allow professional homeopaths to import both dry and liquid
homeopathic medicines for administration to their patients
●
Legal fund established and funding proposal sanctioned by members
● Organizational, administrative, and committee structures developed
● Nominations and election of a new Board of Directors concluded
●
Website constructed where more details can be found pertaining to all the above
For a volunteer organization that is less than a year old, this is a remarkable
achievement!
Although CSH effectively started on January 1, 2006, our roots lie deep
in the recent history of West Coast Homeopathic Society (WCHS).
The first suggestions of what would become a national
organization started about 4 years ago as more and more non-BC
homeopaths and students became members of WCHS, attracted by its
philosophy, advocacy leadership, and membership support.
Within a couple of years, members from BC were joining those from
other provinces to urge the Board to change the name of WCHS to
something more representative of the existing membership, which had
grown literally to span from coast to coast.
There was the expectation that a new name would give members
across the country a sense of ownership in the Society, leading to their
involvement with and leadership in all levels of activity.
Thus, in 2004 the Board agreed to send out an informal poll to
get members’ feedback to this suggestion, followed in 2005 by an
official mail-in ballot requesting membership approval to investigate
the potential ramifications – both of which resulted in overwhelming
support for the idea of a name change.
At the same time as members were asking for a new name, the WCHS Board
was receiving many enquiries about expanding the scope of member
services to include a national liability insurance plan and a national
registry. After 2 years of
investigation, the Board negotiated and approved a group liability
insurance plan for professional members, effective June 16, 2005.
There was no action taken on a national registry, however, since
WCHS was not a national organization.
At the May 2005 AGM, membership instructed the Board to investigate the
possibility and ramifications of changing the Society’s name to
something more national. However,
it was quickly discovered that although a name change was possible, as
long as the Society was incorporated in BC, the Directors would need to
reside in the province at least 6 months of the year.
Clearly the Board could not recommend changing the name of WCHS
since the benefits would be cosmetic only, with no provision for equal
status to all members.
Almost as soon as the 2005 Conference/AGM had concluded, the WCHS Board
was called upon to respond to the question of government regulation of
the homeopathic profession in Ontario. Recognizing that decisions
made in one province would
eventually affect the status of homeopathy in all provinces, we acted on
behalf of all WCHS members and submitted a thorough rebuttal to the
proposal (see About WCHS, June 2005 on the <www.wchs.info>
website). At the same time,
we explained the situation in detail to our members, resulting in at
least 40 individual letters sent in opposition to the proposed
regulations.
During this process, WCHS was functioning as a national organization,
but we were hampered by our regional name.
Although we were representing over 50 members residing in
Ontario, we were not consulted regarding subsequent meetings held with
the Ontario agency (HPRAC) and other provincial and national
organizations. Nor were we immediately invited to participate
in the Ontario Homeopathic Coalition that grew out of this
debate. However, once we had established dialogue with
this group, several of its leaders
(some already WCHS members) added encouragement to the growing
pressure to find a way to establish a national professional body.
In particular, they urged us to establish a national registry
before the HPRAC report was filed in March 2006.
In the meantime, the journal Lancet created an international
furor by publishing highly inflammatory – and unreliable – articles about
homeopathy. WCHS joined the international homeopathic community
in condemning their findings. A copy of the Board’s response can be
accessed on the WCHS In the News webpage, dated August 29, 2005.
Preparation for the Hahnemann 250th anniversary celebration
in Vancouver reinforced the desire for a separate national organization.
This event reminded local members that WCHS used to focus more on
community building, social events, and networking opportunities.
Clearly there was the need for WCHS to find a responsible way
both to resume its original path and to develop a new organization that
all Canadian homeopaths could participate in and that would satisfy
their needs.
Although there was consensus that a national organization was needed to
take over the responsibilities that WCHS had to its members across the
country, there was nothing that WCHS itself could do to affect this
change. The only solution
would be the creation of a separate, federally-incorporated professional
association that provided a national name, national political
representation, and a national registry.
Thus, the individual Board members of WCHS started the process that has
lead to the creation of CSH. Each
of us agreed to form a separate organization that would act as the
Interim Board of CSH until its first election of new Directors.
Our aim was to create a national professional association that
reflected the expectations of all WCHS members and that would gradually
take over many of the WCHS national responsibilities.
Our other objective was to create a way to streamline the
workload of volunteer organizations, to avoid duplication, and to
co-ordinate public education, political action, and media response
projects that would be put into action by local organizations.
We were motivated by what we believed to be best for WCHS,
homeopathy in general, and the WCHS membership across the country.
The impetus for initiating and fast-tracking the creation of CSH
came directly from the membership of WCHS, from other provinces as well
as from within BC.
Today, it comes as a surprise to realize – even for those of us who
were closely involved with it – that a year ago, the Canadian Society
of Homeopaths did not even exist. Our
membership year officially began January 1, 2006 and since then the
transition from WCHS to CSH has proceeded as expected.
CSH has now assumed responsibility for those WCHS activities that
affected members across the country, such as the Directory and group
liability insurance for professional members, and various projects
affecting all members that fall under Public Awareness and Education,
Political Action, and communications.
Ahead of
schedule, CSH has finalized provisional arrangements with independent
provincial organizations (or Affiliates) in BC and Ontario, specifically
the already established West Coast Homeopathic Society and the Ontario
Society of Homeopaths, which was formed last June.
CSH will handle the workload and expenses involved with
membership for the Affiliates while the provincial organizations will
assist with developing various initiatives of mutual interest and help
to put them into action on the local level.
The Board was also
honoured to receive recognition for our Homeopathy Awareness Week
promotion from the World Homeopathic Awareness Organization, which
selected CSH to receive an award for "the greatest contribution
towards homeopathic awareness". Such distinction by our
international peers, especially from
among so many other deserving organizations, was praise indeed.
Membership has been another major accomplishment for our Board this
year, which has grown to include over 360 members across Canada.
But most of what the Founding Board has accomplished has occurred behind
the scenes. An example of
this involves our Political Action activities. This time last year – before
CSH was even formed – our
members on behalf of WCHS were investigating concerns about restrictions
on importing homeopathic medicines.
This required intensive study of federal government websites in
order to understand the expectations and implications of the
regulations, plus consultations with representatives of many other
organizations and the Natural Health Products Directorate (NHPD) in
Ottawa.
Based on our findings, last November WCHS organized a country-wide
lobbying blitz of our federal MPs, which quickly resulted in the NHPD
agreeing to a meeting of all professional organizations.
Although the meeting was cancelled because of the election, it
eventually materialized last Spring as separate meetings in Ottawa and
here on the West Coast. The
Board was pleased that both meetings were attended by many of our
members representing several organizations and schools.
By this time, CSH
representatives had concluded that the current importation difficulties
could be avoided through a re-interpretation of the NHPD definition of
raw materials and compounding. It
was our position that remedies used for compounding by a practitioner
should be considered a raw material, thus falling outside the site
licence requirements and associated restrictions for importing Natural
Health Products. In particular, we stressed that dry remedies
must have equal
recognition with liquid potentizing remedies.
I am pleased to report that recently we were informed that the
NHPD has accepted both dry and liquid remedies in their new definition
of raw materials and so once again both forms may be imported by
homeopathic practitioners.
One success, however,
does not mean that all is well with the NHP regulations.
Restrictions still exist against thousands of homeopathic
remedies that are not included in the list of recognized homeopathic
medicines and CSH must continue to monitor this discrepancy and work to
reverse it.
Another Political Action challenge arose earlier this year when
Ontario’s HPRAC announced its recommendations for regulation of the
homeopathic profession in that province.
Again, after a great deal of research, CSH was able to advise our
members of some of the significant concerns pertaining to these
proposals that would require all Ontario homeopaths to be regulated
under a combined College of Naturopaths and Homeopaths.
Not only did we object to the proposed shared College, but also
we felt that at this time most of our members would not be able to
afford the financial burdens associated with government regulation.
Following our earlier success getting the attention of the
federal NHPD, we took our concerns to the elected representatives in
Ontario through a letter-writing campaign.
Members from across the country (though primarily from Ontario)
wrote to express their individual concerns, drawing attention to the
fact that these proposals were not widely accepted within the
homeopathic community. At this point, we are pleased to
note that the anticipated
legislation due out in September has not yet materialized.
CSH is not alone in opposing the HPRAC proposals. We have
been actively involved with other homeopathic leaders in
Ontario, such as NUPATH, OSH, and several schools.
Our representatives keep in touch regularly with a group
assembled by our Affiliate, Ontario Society of Homeopaths (OSH), which
is monitoring the government’s agenda and preparing a detailed
response to the mis-representation and errors about homeopathy
contained in the HPRAC Report. We
plan to be prepared for any future developments.
Like our Political Action activities, much of the work that the Founding
Board of Directors has been involved with during this past year is often
not apparent. However, we
are pleased to report that the transition from
WCHS to CSH has been completed. All of our initial expectations
for the new Society have been put into
motion and an organizational structure has been established for others
to build on. It is therefore with mixed emotions that we
acknowledge the beginnings of CSH
and at the same time, look forward to its future under the leadership of
a new Board of Directors. We
wish them and all future Boards much success in achieving the
aspirations of all the founding members.
Jo Twiss, President
November 24, 2006
On behalf
of the Canadian Society of Homeopaths Founding Board of Directors:
Nathalie Desrochers Allen
Elena Cecchetto
Tammy Colleton
Wendy Friesen
Christopher Gehry
Albertine Phan
Jo Twiss
Canadian Society of Homeopaths
#101-1001 West Broadway, Unit 120, Vancouver, BC V6H 4E4
604-803-9242
homeopathy@csoh.ca
Copyright © 2006-2010
Revised: January 01, 2010
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