Scott Wolfe
Executive Director
Canadian Association of Community Health Centres

It has now been a few weeks since community health leaders from across Canada and a number of other countries gathered in Ottawa for the 2015 CACHC Conference and AGM. It has become clearer and clearer to me with each passing day how much we accomplished together over the important week of AGM, pre-conference and conference meetings this past September. Relationships were built and strengthened, in many instances across vast geographical expanses. Ideas were sparked, and innovative primary health care services and programs were shared. And perhaps most importantly, what was still a budding flame of hope around the potential of our national and international Community Health Centre movements, has now been transformed into a growing fire.

Entering into this second biennial gathering for CACHC, we were encouraged that we had exciting developments and progress to share with our members, highlights of which can be found in our 2014-15 Annual Report launched on September 16th during our AGM. We were also hopeful that the conclave would act as an historic point in our collective efforts to nurture and grow sustainable CHC movements at municipal, provincial, national and international levels, as well as to have a deeper influence on policymakers at those levels. What we saw, heard and achieved over the course of the week exceeded our ambitious expectations.

• At an important pre-conference session on September 16th we heard CHC stakeholders from seven provinces re-affirm the critical importance of building a stronger national CHC association and movement, along with unanimous agreement that we require both provincial and national CHC associations to flourish if we wish to achieve our shared goals as a community primary health care sector.

• During our AGM, we were captivated by the inspiring stories and message of hope delivered by our keynote speaker, Dr. Shabir Moosa, lead family physician at the Chiawelo CHC community practice in Soweto, South Africa. What struck home most perhaps, was Dr. Moosa’s declaration that people should look to Africa for inspiration regarding sustainable, community-based primary health care programming. They are « doing it », he said, figuring out how to achieve high-quality, effective community-based services and programs in the context of major resource constraints. Those of us in more affluent countries have much to learn from them.

• We were walked through an accessible yet rich presentation by renowned journalist André Picard regarding the importance of federal leadership and action on healthcare. Pointing to numerous examples, Picard dispelled the myth that healthcare is predominantly a « provincial responsibility » in Canada. He also argued that due to the current lack of federal government involvement in healthcare and major changes to the way provinces will receive health funding transfers, the need for strong federal health associations like CACHC has never been greater. The future of Community Health Centres will hinge to a large extent, he said, on our ability to organize and collaborate across the provinces and territories.

• 2015 federal election candidates from three of Canada’s four main political parties — Green, Liberal and NDP — joined the President of the Canadian Medical Association, the President of the Canadian Association of Advanced Practice Nurses, and the CEO of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association to exchange ideas around how to improve the federal role in health and healthcare. It was clear to all that we need the federal government to be far more actively involved in stewarding a coordinated healthcare system and that we must move beyond the status quo of a « sickness system », shifting energy and investment upstream to prevention, and to community-based services and programs like Community Health Centres. We have successfully moved the yardstick forward with many federal political parties and partners regarding the role of Community Health Centres as solutions to many of our most pressing health and social challenges across Canada.

• We gained insights and practical tools around how CHCs in Canada and the United States are improving the quality, accessibility and cost-effectiveness of health services by applying the Triple Aim methodology and approach to guide local planning, service delivery, and monitoring and evaluation.

• We heard about a growing partnership between CACHC and Société Santé en français to expand access to French-language primary health care services for French-speaking populations across Canada, and why this matters.

• We celebrated exceptional leadership by local and national partners, via our 2015 Agent of Change Awards. The leadership taken by our award recipients — Medicine Hat Plan to End Homelessness, Toronto Public Health, Kingston Community Health Centres and Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care — has inspired us to embolden our efforts to advocate a more just, inclusive and healthy society.

• And, we delved into some of the ways in which CACHC and global partners are already harnessing the valuable potential of global CHC exchanges and learning via the International Federation of Community Health Centres (IFCHC).

Of course, that is just a fragment from the full tapestry of presentations, workshops and social activities that contributed to the energy we all felt as we emerged from the conference. Social media were abuzz throughout the week and our special conference hashtag, #ACAC2015 trended in the Twittersphere from September 17-18 as conversations moved online and beyond the conference walls. Our conference Storify board pays testament to the cascading impact of our discussions via social media.

The conference proper may be over, but the energy lives on. Follow-up conversations are now being held to further advance several provincial CHC associations and to better integrate our collective efforts at provincial and federal levels — this is a direct outcome of our conference and pre-conference sessions. Plenary and workshop materials are being revisited by CHCs across Canada to propel them forward in the areas of research, resource-mobilization, quality improvement, democratic engagement, data management and evaluation, and other key areas.

CACHC’s 2015 federal election campaign has been electrified as conference participants and local allies move forward on calls to action issued throughout the conference that we cannot and must not accept the status quo for federal government involvement in health and healthcare. And, CACHC and global partners are building on the September conference as we put our energies into new strategic planning for our global network via the IFCHC.

CACHC is excited to move forward, and our members remain the life blood of this forward movement. As we continue to evolve together, setting sights on the months ahead and our next biennial gathering in Halifax, in 2017, it is increasingly clear the degree to which our members are leaders of a bold and visionary movement to positively transform our country. Our association is immensely grateful for that leadership from the ground up, and I continue to be honoured to be part of this history in the making.