Patti Chmelyk

Patti Chmelyk was born and raised in Moncton, NB. She is a pan-Canadian, who has lived and worked in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon. She is the mother of 3 adult children and has been a passionate community volunteer for such issues as: arthritis and other chronic illnesses, rent-geared to income housing, poverty, and health care.

Patti is proud of her service with the leadership committee of People Against Radioactive Contamination – a grassroots organization that stopped a proposed incinerator, which would have been used to burn radioactive waste within Brampton’s city limits. In October 2006, Patti gave an oral intervention to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in Kincardine.

The initial phase of Patti’s career was as a server/bartender – a career that enabled her to travel throughout Canada and to support her husband and children while her husband, Stan, obtained his Engineering Degree at the University of Alberta.

The second phase of Patti’s career includes 9 years as an administrator with the Alberta New Democrats, an international children’s charity, and Fife House – a supportive, rent-geared to income housing organization for people living with HIV/AIDS.

More recently, Patti has worked for the York University Faculty Association and in primary and community health care. She obtained an administrative position with the Association of Ontario Health Centres and the Canadian Alliance of Community Health Centre Associations. In this field of work, Patti provided administrative assistance to several Best Practices Tools including arthritis, early years, HIV/AIDS, and collaborative teamwork. She also coordinated and provided the logistics for two Think Tanks that brought together researchers, academics, health care practitioners and primary health care decision makers from across the country. This project produced a research agenda for primary health care in Canada.

In 2001, Patti’s husband was diagnosed with a fatal bone-marrow failure disease for which there was no treatment or cure; a bone marrow transplant was the only option. Thankfully, her husband survived the procedure. The trials and challenges of that challenge taught Patti that, as a province, we do birth and death quite well, but we do not do what’s in between – LIFE - so well. Patti would like to help Mike Schreiner and Ontario Greens change that. It’s time!