Forensic Pathology in Canada – Past, Present and Future

Dr. Alika Lafontaine is an award-winning physician and the first Indigenous doctor listed in Medical Post’s 50 Most Powerful Doctors. He was born and raised in Treaty 4 Territory (Southern Saskatchewan) and has Metis, Oji-Cree and Pacific Islander ancestry.

Dr. Lafontaine has served in medical leadership positions for almost two decades. At the Alberta Medical Association, he has served on the representative forum (since 2012), the nominations committee and the Indigenous health committee, and he is a current board member. At the Canadian Medical Association, he has served as an Alberta AGM delegate, has been a member of the appointments committee and has chaired the governance council of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. At the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, he has served on the Indigenous health advisory committee and search/selection subcommittees, he has chaired the regional advisory committee (western provinces) and he is a current council member. He is a member of the board of HealthCareCAN. He has also served as vice-president and president of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada.

From 2013 to 2017 Dr. Lafontaine co-led the Indigenous Health Alliance project, one of the most ambitious health transformation initiatives in Canadian history. Led politically by Indigenous leadership representing more than 150 First Nations across three provinces, the alliance successfully advocated for $68 million of federal funding for Indigenous health transformation in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. He was recognized for his work in the alliance by the Public Policy Forum, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented the award.

In 2020, Dr. Lafontaine launched the Safespace Networks project with friendship centres across British Columbia. Safespace provides a safe and anonymous workflow to report and identify patterns of care; patients and providers use the platform to share their own experiences and contribute to system change without the risk of retaliation for sharing their truths.

Dr. Lafontaine continues to practise anesthesia in Grande Prairie, where he has lived with his family for the last 10 years.

Forensic pathologist with experience of investigating all aspects of sudden and traumatic deaths including homicides/murders in adults and childhood. Particular interests include murder/suicide, drug related deaths, human rights abuses and medico-legal systems.

Dr. Chatterton is the Chief Toxicologist at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Edmonton, AB, Canada and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Alberta. Dr Chatterton earned his PhD from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom prior to taking up employment within the toxicology department of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in 2001. Dr Chatterton is a board-certified forensic toxicologist (F-ABFT) and chartered chemist.

As a senior reporting officer and service delivery team leader, Dr Chatterton managed the National DUID and Road Traffic Alcohol units of the FSS before moving to Canada in 2011 to join the OCME as Deputy Chief Toxicologist; he was promoted to Chief Toxicologist in 2017.

Dr Chatterton is a member of numerous professional organisations including The Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT), The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT), The Society of Hair Testing (SoHT), The American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and The United Kingdom and Ireland Association of Forensic Toxicologists (UKIAFT).

As an active member of these organisations Dr Chatterton has chaired scientific workshops, presented numerous platform, poster and workshop presentations and completed a large number of abstract reviews. Dr Chatterton has published peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on forensic toxicology and drugs in hair analysis, and most recently, post mortem toxicology in Clarke’s Analysis of Drugs and Poisons.

Dr. Kona Williams, as Canada’s first Indigenous Forensic Pathologist, works every day to determine the cause of death of the people who end up in her morgue. However, when she must examine a deceased person of indigenous descent, the cause of death must always include history, marginalization, and generations of trauma.

Dr. Matthew Bowes is the Chief Medical Examiner for the Government of Nova Scotia, a position he has held since 2006. He was previously the Assistant Medical Examiner/Forensic Pathology fellow for the county of Miami-Dade in Florida, USA (2003).

Dr Orde is a medically and legally qualified forensic pathologist. Since 2013 he has held the position of Medical Director of Autopsy Services at the Vancouver General Hospital, and also holds visiting consulting privileges at the BC Children’s Hospital. Matthew is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and is Chair of the BC Forensic Rounds – a provincial forum for discussion of challenging cases, with an emphasis on education and quality assurance.

Matthew graduated from medical school in Scotland, and undertook the majority of his postgraduate pathology training in southern England, but also spent an intensive year long period as a forensic pathology fellow in KwaZulu-Natal, Republic of South Africa. He is registered as a specialist in both anatomical pathology/cytopathology and forensic pathology, and also holds legal qualifications, culminating in Call to the London Bar. Prior to commencing work in Vancouver, Matthew worked for almost ten years as a forensic pathologist in Sydney, Australia, and he also previously held office as Her Majesty’s Assistant Deputy Coroner for the City of Brighton and Hove, UK.

Matthew first commenced work in pathology in 1994, and has been a whole time forensic pathologist since 2005. As a practising forensic pathologist he routinely investigates, examines and reports on injuries sustained in a variety of settings and of various levels of severity, and deaths which have occurred in a range of circumstances, including homicides and suspicious deaths, accidental deaths, therapeutic errors, cases involving the toxic effects of drugs and poisons, and childhood deaths. To date he has personally performed over 3,900 autopsies, and has also overseen a similar number of post-mortem examinations undertaken by pathology trainees under his close supervision.

He has been accepted as an expert witness in forensic and autopsy pathology by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on numerous occasions, as well as by courts in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Matthew is a much sought-after and engaging speaker, and regularly presents to a variety of audiences, ranging from schoolchildren to senior criminal lawyers and members of the judiciary.

Michael S. Pollanen BSc PhD MD FRCPath DMJ (Path) FRCPC FFFLM (hon) Founder, Forensic Pathology is a Canadian forensic and anatomical pathologist with over 20 years of experience. He is the founding Chief Forensic Pathologist of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, and Professor and Vice-Chair (Global Health) of the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology, University of Toronto. Dr Pollanen is the founding Program Director for the accredited residency program in forensic pathology (the first in Canada) and the Raymond Chang fellowship at the University of Toronto, in partnership with the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. Dr. Pollanen led the reform of forensic pathology in Ontario after a public inquiry (Goudge Inquiry) by introducing professional oversight and systemic quality improvements for autopsies. He also contributed to quashing many wrongful convictions, mostly in alleged cases of fatal child abuse with flawed medical evidence. His main educational interest is forensic capacity development in resource-limited settings. He has worked for the United Nations, International Criminal Court, and the International Committee for the Red Cross. He has been involved in international work (casework and training missions, and external examiner duties) in: Algeria, Bermuda, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chile, East Timor, Egypt, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Peru, and the West Bank. Dr. Pollanen was also instrumental in a collaboration with the Department of National Defense to conduct autopsies on Canadian soldiers killed in the international coalition war Afghanistan to help improve protective equipment for Canadian soldiers. His current main professional interest is the application of the autopsy to the investigation of torture, extrajudicial execution, and death in custody. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Tanz Centre in Neurodegenerative Disease where he studies a post-conflict African brain disease. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Dr Pollanen has trained or contributed to the training of over 50 residents/fellows in forensic pathology at the University of Toronto. He is a long term examiner for the specialist certification in anatomical pathology (now diagnostic and molecular pathology) for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is a past president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences.

Thambirajah Balachandra is currently appointed as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.