Author: yipeng

(Letter was delivered electronically via email to the CMA Board of Directors on December 21, 2023)

Dear CMA Board of Directors,

It is with much disappointment that I am writing to you today to share that I have made the difficult decision to resign as a director of the board. I am writing to you from the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin people.

In October 2023, I shared social media posts pertaining to the most recent outbreak of violence in Israel and Palestine, using Instagram to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. I did this in solidarity with the Palestinian people and in the context of my support for their rights to self-determination and struggle for human rights and dignities. My social media statements were founded in anti-racism and respect for international human rights to health equity.

In early November 2023, a physician colleague shared my social media posts publicly on multiple platforms, misrepresenting them in ways I consider highly inflammatory. This physician also shared my posts with CMA leadership.

Unfortunately, my posts have been given an interpretation that is not supported either by their context or plain meaning. I have done my best to share my perspective. Context and intent are important to consider when the phrase “From the River to the Sea: Palestine will be Free” is referenced. The inability to hold multiple truths and interpretations of this phrase at the same time is deeply concerning for me. As is the lack of critical insight and reflection on the harm done upon Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied colleagues in the medical profession by listening, upholding, and valuing one interpretation of the 10-word phrase over another. This pattern of bias, discrimination, and racism must stop.

I acknowledge that there were reasonable opportunities to find a path forward together, but ultimately the attempts to repair the harm that I experienced from the CMA leadership were unsuccessful. My relationship with the organization has become untenable and irreparable, leaving me with no choice but to resign.

Criticism of the actions of Israeli governments is not antisemitic. Criticizing Zionism as a nationalist ideology is not antisemitic. Nor is expressing support for a future in which Palestinians and Israelis can live in equality. We all benefit when we are all freer. 

The persistently negative way in which my social media posts have been painted causes further division and represents an attempt to silence appropriate and much needed dialogue on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This experience, I have come to learn, is a manifestation of anti-Palestinian racism – repression that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.

As a clinician and public health professional that has dedicated my career to health equity and tackling the social determinants of health, I take criticisms of my integrity and character very seriously. Reflecting on my identity as a Chinese-Canadian who benefits from the settler colonial state of Canada, I continue to reckon with how my understandings, work, and actions reflect the values and principles that guide me on my own journey of anti-racism. We will all make missteps and mistakes along the way, and acknowledging harm when it has been experienced by others is important to heal and repair relationships. There is an important difference between engaging in dialogue that is hard or uncomfortable and that of abusive or harmful speech. However, we should not shy away from difficult conversations or silence certain voices as we risk avoiding the necessary work of anti-racism at both an individual and institutional level. With that said, I do not condone or support hate speech, prejudice or intolerance against any religion or groups of peoples and communities; and I unequivocally condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism.

I have substantial concerns related to the actions of the CMA leadership that has created an unsafe environment for me on the board as the sole resident board director – only one of two medical learners on the board. I experienced bullying, harassment, and intimidation from multiple people within CMA leadership related to these posts. Instead of being first and foremost being seen as a “human being”, I was being managed as a “risk” to the organization. I believe what I have experienced is a failure of the CMA leadership to meaningfully reflect on the role that anti-Palestinian racism has played in its response to my social media posts. Similar reprisals are happening to so many others in academic institutions and workplaces, including healthcare organizations, across Canada.

The CMA has taken a stance they consider “neutral” in the face of ongoing Israeli apartheid and genocide. This is unacceptable to me. I cannot in good conscience remain a board director that upholds the primary purpose of being a “key enabler and champion of CMA mission and vision”. This is an impossible situation for me to be in. Being neutral in the face of structural oppression and settler colonialism, is taking the side of the oppressor. I refuse to be a bystander and cannot in good conscience support the CMA as it continues to be a bystander on this human rights issue.

Now more than ever, we need opportunities to bridge divides, find common ground, and lead with compassion and humility for learning and growth. As health professionals, we require environments that at a bare minimum are brave spaces where respectful but sometimes challenging dialogue can take place for this kind of mutual learning and growth to happen so that we can create the conditions for collective and organizational change. It is an extremely difficult and emotional time, and what I have experienced and seen is a lot of emotional reacting rather than mindfully responding to one another.

I am struggling to find medical leadership that reflects the moral courage and moral clarity that we need in times like these. The work of equity, diversity, and inclusion means very little if organizations like the CMA fail to protect and support their medical learners when situations like this occur. It also means very little if we remain silent on the humanitarian and public health crisis unfolding in Gaza, including stopping short of demanding for a ceasefire and a stop to the unacceptable attacks on healthcare workers, patients, and infrastructure.

We need to lead with humility, patience, and kindness for others and ourselves. This is what I have practiced in responding to CMA leadership. I will continue to do what I know is right, and work to learn and grow through respectful dialogue with others. I am hopeful in knowing that I am not alone – there are so many that are choosing to stand with moral courage and clarity. We need more of such people in this world despite the challenges they face. I am so proud and grateful to know some of them and to call them my trusted and respected friends and family.

Best wishes,

Yipeng Ge

Over these past two weeks after the resumed session of the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA), I’ve had some conversations with other Canadian youth interested in the Canadian youth delegate role (see application form here) and I’ve been asked some great questions that I realize aren’t made very clear in the application form itself.

Over this past year, I’ve had the privilege of being the Canadian youth delegate to both the 73rd World Health Assembly and the 58th Pan American Health Organization Directing Council meetings. These two meetings are respectively the highest-decision making or ‘governing body’ meetings for the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization – two significant multilateral organizations that the Canada is a Member State for and with. Canada as a Member State sends (or this year attended virtually) a delegation comprised of public servants from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Global Affairs Canada, a Canadian youth delegate, and sometimes a representative from a civil society organization in Canada. Canada attends these meetings to not only receive updates on the work of these multilateral organizations to advance global health priorities and goals, but also to keep these organizations to account in their work and deliverables. The role of the Canadian youth delegate is to provide a youth perspective and lens to the global health issues and topics discussed in advance of these meetings to help strengthen and inform Canada’s positioning and delivery of interventions during these meetings.

These past few months have seen incredible and exceptional attention paid to health and wellbeing of peoples and communities around the world. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spotlight has been cast on organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization and other similar technical organizations that deliver public health guidance and research, crucial for core functions of public health, but certainly during an emergency response to the pandemic of a novel coronavirus. Uniquely, is the role of the World Health Organization, to be seen as a leader in coordination of an international response to the pandemic, including how to ensure similar situations do not repeat themselves again in the future.

The resumed 73rd WHA (virtual) that took place between Nov 9, 2020 and Nov 13, 2020 covered various governance related topics, resolutions not passed over the summer months with a written silence procedure, and an update on covid19 response measures including various review mechanisms for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Full details are available here. And a high-level summary prepared by the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) can be found here. Many Member States delivered important interventions covering a vast array of topics – in particular, the direct and indirect impacts of the covid19 pandemic on their communities. As well, many Non-State Actors, Intergovernmental Organizations, and Regional Offices of WHO, also provided similarly compelling remarks.

WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros, urged that all leaders must prioritize health systems to be better prepared to deliver health services and that strategies will not be successful without the people delivering them (i.e. doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc.), and thus investments must be made to tackle a global health workforce crisis. Of note, 2021 has been designated as the International Year of Health and Care Workers, to show and demonstrate the essential role of health and care workers during the covid19 pandemic. Dr. Tedros also went on to comment on how over 50 million peoples have been infected with covid19, with 1.2 million deaths, and with more peoples that have died from the disruption of healthcare services. The grief cannot be measured. These statistics do not easily reflect the suffering and the important narratives and stories of individual people and loved ones. The long-term impacts of the covid19 pandemic, both direct and indirect will be enormous, and the type of world inherited by the next generation is hard to imagine.

Dr. Tedros also shared important developments and updates on rapid testing for covid19, the ongoing development of various vaccine candidates, including the COVAX facility (accessible and equitable distribution of vaccine as a global public good) and a covid19 technology access pool. Commendable advancements in public health include the eradication of wild polio virus and the first time the global community has committed to eradicate a particular cancer – cervical cancer. Other updates shared covered the ongoing sustained surveillance for a global response to AMR or antimicrobial resistance. As well as, necessary investments for mental health supports for healthcare workers, tackling a global shortfall of nursing workforce (shortfall of 5.9 million nurses), and bolstering essential public health functions and healthcare services. The issue of sustainable financing for the work of the WHO was also discussed, as the expectations of Member States and the global community on the role of WHO has been disproportionate to what the WHO has been financed to be able to accomplish. And finally, Dr. Tedros ended his remarks that “it is time for the world to heal”, although multiple covid19 vaccine candidates are in development, there is no ‘vaccine’ for poverty, the climate crisis, and inequalities.

Furthermore, during the resumed 73rd WHA, the various review mechanisms and committees were able to provide updates on the status of their work. Three areas of review mechanisms are currently in place to strengthen the international prevention, preparedness, and response to pandemics and health emergencies. They are the IOAC (Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Emergencies Programme), IHR review committee (Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during the COVID-19 response), and the IPPR (The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response). While important recommendations continue to flow through various mechanisms and channels for ongoing consideration, improvement, and implementation (such as a traffic light system for pandemic response and risk, sustainable financing for the WHO, ensuring the IHRs are fit for purpose, etc.) – what is clear, is that multilaterialsm is the only approach to global challenges. These review mechanisms may significantly impact global architecture for health security and health and wellbeing post-pandemic. It is also a hope and aim that a humanistic approach is taken to strengthen public health structures, that also strives towards social justice and resilience, in order to address current and future public health emergencies – knowing that structural vulnerability are the fault lines of the pandemic impacts.

The “right to health is the most important right”.

Over the next few weeks, the application period is open for next year’s Canadian youth delegate to the World Health Assembly and Pan American Health Organization Directing Council. The application is available here, and the deadline is December 23, 2020, at 23:59 EST. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions.

-yipeng