Moira Stilwell

Moira Stilwell (born 1953 or 1954) is a Canadian politician and physician who served as the member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for the riding of Vancouver-Langara from 2009 to 2017. As part of the British Columbia Liberal Party caucus, she served in several cabinet posts under premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark.

Background

Stilwell graduated from the University of Calgary Medical School, and received further training in nuclear medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and in radiology at the University of Toronto. After serving as staff radiologist and co-medical director of the Breast Health Program at BC Women's Hospital, she became the head of nuclear medicine at St. Paul's Hospital, Surrey Memorial Hospital, and Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre, but left all those positions in 2009 to run for public office. Along with serving as a practicing physician and administrator, she was the clinical assistant professor at UBC's Department of Radiology.

In addition to her professional capacities, Stilwell also served as the co-chair of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation 2020 Task Force, and was past chair of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation/BC Yukon Chapter. She has also served on the board of the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance and on the BC Women's Hospital Foundation Board.

She is currently practising at the BC Children’s Hospital and at St. Paul's Hospital where she is head of the division of nuclear medicine. She is active in resident teaching and encouraging physician engagement.

Politics

She ran for the BC Liberals in the 2009 provincial election, and was elected member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vancouver-Langara by a margin of 4,275 votes. She was named to the cabinet by Premier Gordon Campbell that June as Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development, before being re-assigned as Minister of Regional Economic and Skills Development in October 2010.

With Campbell resigning as premier and Liberal leader amidst the controversial implementation of the harmonized sales tax, Stilwell resigned her cabinet post in November 2010 to run for party leadership, becoming the first declared candidate in the race. During her campaign, Stilwell focused her attention on the importance of building a knowledge-based economy to ensure BC’s future prosperity; increasing the minimum wage in BC from $8/hour to $10/hour; and reducing the interest rate that students in BC pay for loans to finance their studies.

Stilwell dropped out of the campaign on February 16, 2011, announcing her support for George Abbott. The leadership election subsequently occurred on February 26, 2011 and was won by Christy Clark. Initially without a ministerial role in Clark's cabinet, Stilwell was instead appointed parliamentary secretary for industry, research and innovation to the Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation on March 14, 2011, before becoming parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health in March 2012. She returned to the cabinet in September 2012 as Minister of Social Development.

At the 2013 provincial election, she defeated New Democrat George Chow by 2,787 votes to win re-election as Vancouver-Langara MLA. She stayed on the backbenches for the duration of the 40th Parliament, and announced her decision to retire from politics on June 17, 2016, finishing her term as MLA in May 2017.

Controversy

In 2012, Stilwell wrote a letter and report titled "Action Plan for Repatriating B.C. Medical Students Studying Abroad" to Mike de Jong, the Minister of Health Services, on the subject of British Columbians who wanted to return to Canada for their medical residency. In her report, she admits "The Ministry of Health Services and the UBC Faculty of Medicine maintain that BC medical students studying abroad must be treated the same as immigrant physicians applying to the BC IMG program because to do otherwise would be a violation of human rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights", but she argued that Canadians Studying Abroad (CSAs) should be treated the same as Canadian and American trained medical school graduates, i.e. preferentially treated over International Medical Graduates (IMGs). International Medical Graduates often have a very difficult time obtaining very limited residency positions in Canada.

As reported in Maclean's and The Tyee, she had an apparent and undisclosed personal stake in this issue, as her son, Kevin Lichtenstein, was studying medicine at an international university, and thus would benefit from an easier residency process.

On February 6, 2015, The Tyee reported that, "Cardiac surgeons on a selection committee at St. Paul's Hospital manipulated the hiring process for a training position so they could hire a student who was the son of their boss and of a provincial cabinet minister tilwell documents show." During the selection process for residency, Dr. Cook at the University of British Columbia created an irregularity in the residency matching process where they left a spot open in during the first iteration of the matching process. Dr. Cook stated they had a candidate in mind who is a Canadian hostudied medicine abroad and did an elective rotation with them. This candidate would not be eligible for first iteration but would be eligible for second iteration. Dr. Wong, also with UBC, stated that the process followed was not "fair or transparent or equitable for the other CaRMS anadian Residency Matching Servicecandidates," and further that "the Program's actions were not compliant with the CaRMS rules and procedures and that this irregularity could be contested to CaRMS in the future by a candidate and/or a medical school."

Ultimately, the Cardiac Surgery residency slot was opened for a second iteration, a CaRMS irregularity. In that second iteration, over 96 applicants applied, and her son was selected as the successful candidate. As he was an international medical graduate, he was not eligible to apply to the first iteration of the Cardiac Surgery program at UBC. However, because of the irregularity that occurred (which notably was not compliant with the CaRMS rules), he was able to apply and gain entrance into the program.

Electoral record

References

External links

British Columbia Legislative Assembly biography

Moira Stilwell, BC Liberal Party profile

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Living people
BC United MLAs
Canadian hospital administrators
Canadian nuclear medicine physicians
Canadian radiologists
Members of the Executive Council of British Columbia
Physicians from British Columbia
Politicians from Vancouver
University of Calgary alumni
Women government ministers of Canada
Women MLAs in British Columbia
Women radiologists
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century Canadian women politicians
21st-century members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia