Munter became much involved in local politics in his role as editor of the Kanata Kourier. He was frequently at odds with Kanata Mayor Des Adam. In August 1989,he sold his paper to Runge Newspapers Inc. for over $300,000 due to competition from the rival paper Kanata Standard,but stayed on as publisher.[1] In November 1989,Munter left the Kourier to focus on his ongoing studies in Political Science at the University of Ottawa.[2]
He worked as a political reporter for the Ottawa Citizen before and after running as a candidate of the Ontario New Democratic Party in the 1990 provincial election,contesting the riding of Carleton. Munter placed third in this conservative riding,but received more votes than any previous NDP candidate in the area.
Munter would soon join the Spicer Commission on Canada's Future before re-entering politics to run for Kanata City Council against incumbent Bev Read. After winning the election,Munter quickly became a prominent member of the council. He pushed through an initiative to install condom dispensers in some municipal buildings. He also chaired the Kanata Police Services Board.
Munter was a City and Regional Councillor in Ottawa from 1991 to 2003. In 1993,he came out via an op-ed and became the National Capital Region's first openly gay politician.[3][4]
The following year,he ran for a seat on the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton representing all of Kanata. He easily won the seat against two other Kanata politicians.
From 1997 onward,he headed the council committees responsible for health and social services with oversight of the city's $550 million human services budget. In that role,he led Council to adopt unanimously pioneering smoke-free regulations in 2001;helped open new child care centres,expand the number of child care spaces,and expand public health programs for children and youth;worked with provincial government to oversee the transfer of ambulance services and social housing to the municipal level;initiated Canada's first comprehensive public access defibrillator program;expanded long-term care for seniors;funded hospital expansions and worked with the Community Care Access Centre and community support agencies to improve at-home support services for seniors and people with disabilities.
In 2012 and 2013,Munter served as co-chair of the Ontario Healthy Kids Panel along with Kelly Murumets,president and CEO of ParticipACTION. The final report recommended starting kids on the right path from conception to birth,changing the food environment,and creating healthier communities.
Munter holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences degree from the University of Ottawa,a Master of Science degree in Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics and a professional designation as a Certified Health Executive (CHE) from the Canadian College of Health Leaders. After leaving city government,he was a Visiting Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa,teaching there and at Montreal's Concordia University.
During his time in office,Kanata was in the midst of an economic boom centred on the high-tech industry. Munter's main concern was managing the area's rapid growth. He supported creating the amalgamated city of Ottawa,and was acclaimed to the new Ottawa City Council when it was created.
He also chaired the new city of Ottawa's health committee and,along with Medical Officer of Health Robert Cushman,worked to bring in Ottawa's no-smoking by-law.[5]
On February 13,2006,Alex Munter announced his candidacy for mayor of Ottawa in the November 2006 municipal election.[6] A 2005 poll by the Ottawa Sun had Munter as a front-runner,in a statistical tie with the incumbent Bob Chiarelli. Another public poll in April 2006 had Munter as the front runner with a significant lead over Chiarelli. Most polls made public in the early stages of the campaign showed Munter in first place,often by a small margin. A poll conducted between October 13 and 18 by UniMarketing and sponsored by Radio-Canada and Le Droit,had Munter ahead by 12 percentage points at 44% of decided voters. Larry O'Brien was in second place with 32% and Chiarelli third (24%).[7]
On election night,Munter finished second with 36.25%,behind O'Brien (47%) but ahead of Chiarelli (15.6%).
2006 mayoral campaign platform
A map showing the concentration of Munter's vote. He won the downtown and his home region of Kanata while doing poorly in the rural areas
Munter set out several key priorities in his mayor campaign:public safety,fiscal responsibility,local economy and public transit. He promised to limit tax hikes to the inflation rate. While he was a city councillor,he claimed he helped to bring in ten consecutive balanced budgets without any tax increases. His opponents claimed that the budget was balanced despite his votes to increase spending.
He said he planned to improve public transit in the city of Ottawa,to review the O-Train project and to fix possible irregularities regarding the contract with Siemens. Munter said that the project could have been significantly better than the existing proposal,and that the costs could have been reduced. He did his own proposal of the north–south line by proposing the removal of the Barrhaven and downtown sections. Funding released would have redirected for the development of a future east–west line.[8]
He criticized outgoing mayor Bob Chiarelli on several occasions for proceeding too quickly on the project,without proper information and consultation. He also criticized the mayor for allegedly providing incorrect information about the project,including saying that there would be additional costs because of an announcement made by John Baird,President of the Treasury Board,that the federal government's $200 million contribution would be delayed until after the November election.[9] After Larry O'Brien's election as the new mayor,the expansion project was completely cancelled by City Council on December 14,2006.
He promised to improve safety on the city streets with an increase of the number of police officers. He supported,along with mayors from other cities,increased gun control and stricter measures for drug dealing. He also proposed to give an easier access to leisure activities for kids with lower recreational fees. He wanted the city of Ottawa to be environmentally friendly. In addition to improvements for the public transit system,he also promised to close two landfill sites situated on Carp and Navan Roads in which there were expansion requests by private firms despite opposition by citizens.
Advocacy
Alex Munter has spent more than three decades in public service,first as an elected official,then as a leader and advocate with a focus on the health of children and youth. He has been the president and CEO of CHEO,eastern Ontario’s children’s hospital in Ottawa,Ontario,Canada since October 2011,replacing Michel Bilodeau who retired from CHEO after a 30-year career in health administration.[10]
Since moving into health and social services administration in 2007,Munter has focused on public policy issues like human rights,gene patenting,[11] obesity,[12] mental health and the future of health care.[13]
Munter was also the City of Ottawa’s first openly gay politician and,during his time in local politics,he helped bring in Ottawa’s no-smoking bylaw.
Munter is an advocate of “pedianomics,”the theory that if you invest in children and youth now,you will save for a lifetime –a key message for advocacy organization Children’s Healthcare Canada.
He was the president of CHEO during the COVID-19 pandemic when the health-care system faced unending pressures. Among other things,he sent 75 pediatric staff into nursing homes to help deal with the crisis there in the first wave of the pandemic. The pandemic has since led to significant wait-lists for care.
In 2001,as head of the city of Ottawa's Health and Social Services Committee,Munter led the adoption of Canada's first big-city workplace and public place smoking ban on city council. The Ottawa bylaw became a model for many other jurisdictions,including New York City,which invited Munter to present to its city health commission in 2002. While second-hand smoke prohibitions are now commonplace,Ottawa's regulations broke new ground and came only a few years after Toronto had been forced to repeal a similar by-law due to public protest.
In 2003,Munter was approached by Canadians for Equal Marriage,a coalition of churches,professional groups and citizen organizations,and was asked to be the group's National Co-ordinator. In that role,he led a successful national campaign in support of Bill C-38:Civil Marriage Act,the federal legislation to entrench same-sex marriage rights in Canadian law.[14]
In 2012,Munter was appointed co-chair of a provincial expert panel on childhood obesity. Its 2013 report proposed a three-pronged strategy to reduce rates of childhood obesity:putting kids on the path to lifelong health,changing the food environment and building healthier communities. Recommendations included baby-friendly hospitals,better support for breastfeeding[15] and restrictions on the marketing of junk food to children.[16]
In 2014,Munter spoke for CHEO when the organization launched a lawsuit against a private company,Transgenomic,challenging the legality of gene patents in Canada’s Federal Court. CHEO argued genes and other segments of the human genome should not be subject to patents for commercial purposes. CHEO declared victory in 2016 when it secured the right to use the disputed genes for all public hospitals and non-profit labs,thus creating a public access framework that could be replicated for other genes. Munter called it "a historic day for Canada and Canada's healthcare system.."[17]
Munter has also been a vocal advocate for better access to mental health care[18] and the adoption of innovative technologies within Canadian hospitals,[19] as well as a frequent speaker on the future of Canada's universal medicare system.[20]
Previously,Munter briefly led the regional health authority,the Champlain Local Health Integration Network,which has since been absorbed into Ontario Health. He also served as the executive director of the Youth Services Bureau (YSB) —one of Ontario’s largest accredited children's mental health agencies —in Ottawa from 2007 to 2011.
Boycott of Capital Pride 2024
Munter announced on August 16,2024,that CHEO,under his leadership as CEO,would boycott the Capital Pride 2024 festivities as a result of the organization expressing solidarity with Palestine,[21] specifically recognizing the "ongoing Gaza Genocide",advocating for Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions,in addition to condemning the October 7 attacks on Israel and rising anti-semitism and Islamophobia.[22] Munter wrote that the solidarity statement from Capital Pride was an attempt to "repurpose the Pride Parade to protest Israel" and this solidarity stand made some members of the community "no longer feel safe or welcome to attend."[22] Capital Pride co-chair Francesco MacAllister-Caruso responded to the criticism saying "Our movement is based on equity,justice and inclusion for everyone. And that involves us having to foster difficult but important conversations on these topics."[22][23]
Awards
Munter has won awards[citation needed] from a wide range of organizations for his contributions to the community,including the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health,the Canadian Institute for Child Health,United Way/Centraide Ottawa,the Federal Business Development Bank,l'Association Canadienne-Française de l'Ontario d'Ottawa,Leadership Ottawa and the Ontario Association of Social Workers.
In 2023,Munter received three awards for his work during the COVID-19 pandemic:Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) –Ottawa chapter;the Paul Harris Award from the Rotary Club of West Ottawa,an award named after the founder of the Rotary Club;and an individual leadership award from Children’s Healthcare Canada.
Personal life
Munter's father emigrated from Germany to Montreal in 1966,one year after his mother arrived from Egypt. His parents met in a French class for immigrants,which his mother was teaching. His family then moved to the Ottawa region in 1977,and settled in the Katimavik-Hazeldean area west of the city. At age 14,Munter began publishing the Kanata Kourier from his basement as a monthly local paper for the suburban community of Kanata,Ontario. In four years,the paper had a staff of seven and a circulation of 10,000 in the town of 27,000. In recognition of his success in business,he received an award as "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" from then-Prime MinisterBrian Mulroney in 1988.
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