Speaker Series

With four decades of progressive experience in the health-care system, Mike Villeneuve has worked in all the domains of nursing practice — direct care, administration, education, research and policy.

Mike was appointed chief executive officer of CNA in June 2017. He leads the Ottawa-based organization’s team and operations as it works for its more than 139,000 members across all 13 Canadian provinces and territories and hundreds of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. In his role, he is helping to implement a forward-leaning vision for professional nursing in Canada and the related services needed at CNA to support that transformation.

Since 2000, Mike has held teaching, executive and consulting roles with the federal Office of Nursing Policy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, the Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses, CNA and its National Expert Commission, and the Lawrence S. Bloomberg faculty of nursing at the University of Toronto. Prior to returning to CNA as CEO, Mike led his own consultancy in health policy analysis, research, strategy and communication, serving governments, professional associations, unions and universities across Canada and internationally.

During the 1990s, Mike was an educator and then patient care manager in the neuro intensive care and neuro/trauma/plastics units at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. One of three authors of CNA’s centennial history book, Mike also is author of Public Policy and Canadian Nursing: Lessons from the Field (2017), the first Canadian text focused on nursing and public policy.

Mike lives on unceded Algonquin territory in rural Eastern Ontario, where he is proud to serve on the Board of Directors at Winchester District Memorial Hospital—one of Ontario’s highest-performing small community hospitals. Mike was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2019.

Christine is the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Nurses Foundation (CNF), Canada’s only national charity that raises funds exclusively for nursing education and research. She has helped lead this organization for the past eight years setting new and innovative goals, including raising over one million dollars for indigenous nursing education and research. Prior to CNF, Christine worked with the Canadian Nurses Association, in a number of roles, the most recent being Manager of Regulatory Affairs. Christine has also worked internationally as the chair of the International Council of Nurses, International Nurse Practitioner /Advanced Practice Nurse Network health policy subgroup. Originally from Montreal, Christine completed both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at McGill. Christine has several publications that focused on the role of advance practice nurses nationally and internationally.

My name is Courtney Blake (she/her) and I identify as a fat, queer, cis woman who lives on the unceded and traditional territory of the K’omoks first nation. I am extremely passionate about social justice and will happily talk your ear off about its role in nursing. When I graduate, I plan on becoming a public health nurse. In addition to CNSA and my schooling, I am a co-creator of a non-profit organization called Queersource, which is a resource center that aims to support 2SLGBTQ+ individuals of all ages in small communities.

Linda Silas has been the President of the 200,000-strong Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) since 2003. As the dynamic and charismatic leader of Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, Linda is recognized as the foremost advocate on behalf of nurses in Canada.

Starting her tenure as a full-time labour activist as the single mom of a 13-month-old son has shaped Linda in a very distinctive way. Linda has earned a reputation for being a caring listener who is focused and solution-oriented in everything she does. A proud New Brunswicker, Linda credits her home province for both her impressive work ethic and her well-known zest for life and adventure.

Linda has fine-tuned her skills as a union leader at the local, provincial, national and international levels over the course of two decades. She is a passionate speaker whose straight-talking in both official languages inspires nurses and earns the respect of policy-makers and stakeholders. Linda’s favourite public speaking engagements are always for students, as she believes that mentoring the next generation of activists is an important responsibility we all share.

Linda champions greater understanding and action on social justice, the social determinants of health and key policies that will enhance socio-economic equity, such as retirement security for all workers, a national pharmacare program, universal child care and greater access to public services for Indigenous communities.

Linda was previously the President of the New Brunswick Nurses Union (NBNU) for 10 years. Linda is a graduate of l’Université de Moncton, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and has practiced in the ICU, emergency, and labour and delivery.

Linda believes health care, like education and decent work, is a human right. She embodies the CFNU motto “Where knowledge meets know-how.”

Dr. Ruth Lee is Executive Director of CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses, and Associate Clinical Professor at the School of Nursing, McMaster University. Ruth received her BScN and MScN from the Faculty of Nursing and PhD from the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Ruth’s career spans from staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist, program manager, and Chief of Nursing Practice in various academic healthcare centres, to faculty member and researcher at academic institutions. As Executive Director at CARE Centre, Ruth works closely with regulators, employers, professional organizations, and academics to support Internationally Educated Nurses’ integration process. She is passionate of grooming the next generation of nurses as her way of paying back to all her generous mentors throughout her nursing career. Ruth received the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario’s 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contribution in diversity in nursing.

Nicki Armstrong is the in-house Nurse Practitioner at Villa Marie, Covenant Care in central Alberta, occasionally teaches as a sessional clinical instructor for Red Deer College's B.Sc.N program, and is a founding partner of ObesityLink, an organization that provides expert bariatric care throughout Alberta via telehealth. Nicki started her career in health care as a Canadian Armed Forces Reserve Army medic while completing her B.Sc. in Exercise Physiology at the University of Calgary. After a few years in the fitness industry, she returned to U of C to obtain her BN and a fortuitous assignment for her final preceptorship landed her in rural Alberta where she rediscovered a passion for rural and remote health. After several years in rural acute care and emergency, teaching nurses both in Canada and Bangladesh, and starting a family, Nicki landed in Red Deer, Alberta. A career in bariatrics has allowed her to use her exercise physiology background while furthering her nursing practice and serving patients throughout Alberta. With support and encouragement from her team at the Red Deer Bariatric Specialty Clinic Nicki earned her Master of Nursing (Nurse Practitioner) from Athabasca University – a career decision that renewed her excitement about rural and remote practice.

After a somewhat nomadic early career, Nicki has settled down on an acreage in central Alberta and is firmly committed to supporting rural and remote nursing practice through her work with CARRN. Nicki’s broad clinical experiences exemplify the specialist-generalist nature of rural practice and a lifestyle that bodes regular commutes to a regional referral centre will be familiar to many rural nurses. She strives to maintain her clinical practice while remaining equally engaged in teaching and committee work, believing that praxis is at the centre of nursing theory. While still a newly graduated nurse herself in 2004, Nicki remembers ‘road tripping’ out to Saskatchewan with a crew of nursing school friends (and getting T-Shirts to mark the occasion) to attend Nursing the Future’s Inaugural Annual Conference. “I could not be more honoured to have been asked to contribute to the Nursing the Future Speaker Series”.