About Us

Dave Addison’s life is one of both personal and professional transformation. Dave spent 25 years in various corporate leadership roles in business development and general management, but values conflicts and a mental health crisis convinced him to make changes in his life.

After leaving the corporate world, Dave became the Executive Director of Toronto City Mission (the oldest and longest running mission in the City). TCM’s focus is serving children and families impacted by poverty which is consistent with Dave’s long history of volunteering with organizations that help the marginalized.

Presently, Dave is a strategic consultant to small businesses and spends much of his personal time as an active lay leader at St. Paul’s Bloor Street.

Dave is a recovered alcoholic and also has the lived experience of parenting a child with substance use disorder.

Dr. Barbeau is a full-time Family Physician and Lead Physician with the Superior Family Health Team in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and she also works extensively in Mental Health and Addictions. She completed a B.A. at the University of Western Ontario, M.Sc (A) at McGill University and her MD at McMaster. She attended the Northeastern Ontario Family Medicine Program (NOFM) for her Family Medicine Residency. She has worked in a number of primary care models including Family Health Group, Rural and Northern Physician Group Agreement, Family Health Organization and more recently a Family Health Team. She has also worked in Addiction Medicine for the last 6 years and is one of four physicians at the local Rapid Access Addiction Medicine clinic in Sault Ste. Marie.

Currently, Dr. Barbeau is Head of Service for Addiction Medicine at the Sault Area Hospital, member of the Department of Mental Health and Addictions as well as the Medical Director for the Sexual Assault and Care Clinic. She is currently Secretary for the Medical Staff Executive. She teaches medical students and residents and is an Associate Professor at Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University. She is very passionate about her work in addiction medicine and concurrent disorders and is involved in presentations and research in the area. She also has a loved one who has experienced addiction.

Angie Hamilton is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Families for Addiction Recovery (FAR). She graduated from McGill University in 1984 with a Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B).  After being called to the Ontario Bar in 1986, she practiced law in the area of Tax and Estate Planning for 18 years.  She represents FAR on the Toronto Drug Strategy Panel of Toronto Public Health. Angie is a Board Member of The Ontario Family Caregivers’ Advisory Network and a member of the Public Policy Committee of the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine. She was a member of the National Board of MADD Canada from 2014 to 2020 and the Chair of their Public Policy Committee. Angie is or has been a member of various advisory committees for organizations such as The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, The Mental Health Commission of Canada, Children’s Mental Health Ontario and The Change Foundation.

Through lived experience with one of her son’s struggles with addiction, Angie has developed a passion for supporting other families struggling with addiction, compassion for those in active addiction and an immense respect for those living in recovery. She gives presentations to the medical community, law enforcement, religious organizations and other community groups to break down stigma and raise understanding of addiction as a preventable and treatable illness.

Until his retirement in 2007, Peter was the Executive Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and a member of the Board of Directors of Aur Resources Inc., a Canadian mining company. He retired when Aur was taken over. Prior to joining Aur in 1989, Peter practiced corporate and securities law with Aird & Berlis, a Toronto law firm, since 1980. Peter has a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Osgoode Hall and an MBA from York University.

He is married with 3 children. His involvement in FAR and his interest in the area of substance use disorder arose as a result of one of his children’s struggles with addiction from the age of 14. That child is now in recovery. Peter’s experiences in dealing with his child’s addiction led to his belief that a national organization like FAR is needed to support families struggling with addiction.

Oona St-Amant is an Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) at the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing. She obtained her Master of Science in Nursing (MScN) in 2011 and her PhD in 2014 from Western University. Her program of research examines the sociological dimensions of unpaid care work and family caregiving relationships, with particular attention to issues of health equity.

Her earlier research explored international volunteer work and family caregiving, and more recently her scholarship has focused on family caregiving in the context of substance use. Her research is primarily qualitative, and she frequently teaches qualitative research methods and critical appraisal at the graduate level. Oona has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and open education textbooks, she continues to supervise graduate students, and holds several research grants. She is committed to advancing knowledge related to family caregiving and substance use.

Hamish White, C.A.D.C., H.S.C., S.S.W., is a certified alcohol and drug dependency counsellor who has worked in the addiction and mental health fields for the past 35 years. He enjoys a reputation as being a skillful clinician yet “down-to-earth” with common-sense solutions to problems that occur when families and clients are struggling with addiction recovery issues. He is well known in the addiction treatment, health professional and recovery communities.

Hamish is recognized by his colleagues and peers throughout North America for his expertise and is the 2014 recipient of the prestigious Peter Armstrong Award of Excellence in recognition of his long standing support, contribution and outstanding dedication to client based and family inclusive counselling in the Toronto community.

Hamish has vast experience working with youth and families and is familiar with many excellent resources all over Canada and the United States. He is certified by the Canadian Addiction Counsellors Certification Federation and is the founder, coordinator and director of Recovery Counselling Services.

Sydney manages FAR’s P2P Program and Phone Support Line. She has worked in healthcare for over 29 years. Her expertise is in teaching providers, patients and families how to effectively partner for better quality, safety, improved outcomes, as well as creating better partnerships, enabling families to be a participants and co-designers of care.

Sydney has worked with hospitals, government agencies, community care, academia, researchers,non- profits and patients and families. Her professional work is driven by her years of extensive lived experience. She is passionate about supporting families who are struggling with mental health and addictions , joining FAR over 6 years ago.  She is a Certified Counsellor as well as a Cognitive and Dialectical Behaviour Skills Trainer.

Sydney is also a Board Member of the Ontario Family Caregiver Advisory Board (OFCAN) and a member of The Global Patient and Family Advisory Board (GPFAB). She is also a Patient Partner at OntarioMD.

Syd can be reached at sydney@farcanada.org

MSW, RSW

Dawna conducts intake assessments with families and facilitates the Parent Support Groups as well as providing individual, couple, and family counselling at Recovery Counselling Services. She is usually the first person parents see when they are looking for help with a young family member. With extensive training in family counselling, she provides the information, direction, and support families require when dealing with the powerful impact addiction can have on family members.

Dawna has been in the counselling profession for the past 40 years. She has experience in the child protection field and working with people with life threatening illness and their families, has worked in geriatrics with families and their elderly parents experiencing senility and Alzheimer related dementia, expertise in trauma and issues of abuse, crisis intervention, and working with families and addiction. Dawna has a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Toronto and is a Registered Social Worker. Dawna is a member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers, the Canadian Addiction Counsellors Certification Federation, Association of Marital and has been trained in Family Therapy and Structured Family Recovery. Dawna has been a core member of the Recovery Counselling Services Team since 2006.

M.D., FRCPC
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Senior Clinician-Scientist, Addictions Division
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

Dr. Tony George is Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto (U of T), where he directs a program of research focused on understanding the biological basis of addiction co-morbidity (e.g. tobacco and cannabis) in serious mental illness, with a focus on schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. He also served as Chief of the Schizophrenia Division (2008-2016), Medical Director of the Complex Mental Illness Program (2012-2016) and Chief of Addictions (2016-2018) at CAMH. He was also the inaugural holder of the Chair in Addiction Psychiatry at the
University of Toronto (2006-2012). His research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the CAMH Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He completed his undergraduate and medical school training at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with his M.D. degree in 1992. Dr. George then completed psychiatry residency training (1992-96) and a fellowship in Translational Neuroscience (1996-98) at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven,
Connecticut, USA, joining the faculty at Yale in 1998. He was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University before coming to the University of Toronto as a Full Professor in 2006.

Dr. George has over 260 peer-reviewed publications, and is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). Since 2013, he has served as Deputy Editor of the ACNP’s journal Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP). In 2023, he will become Co-Editor in Chief of NPP. Dr. George wrote the chapter on Nicotine and Tobacco to Cecil Textbook of Medicine in 2011, 2015 the newest edition scheduled for 2019, and is Vice-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Canadian Council on Substance Abuse (CCSA), co-editing its report on Cannabis and Youth.

B.Phm., 1990, pharmacy, Dalhousie University, Canada
MD, 1994, Dalhousie University, Canada
FRCPC, 1998, internal medicine, University of Toronto, Canada
FRCPC, 2000, clinical pharmacology, U of T, Canada
Fellowship, 2002, medical toxicology, U of T, Canada
PhD, 2003, clinical epidemiology, U of T, Canada

Dr. Juurlink is a staff internist and head of the division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He is also a medical toxicologist at the Ontario Poison Centre at the Hospital for Sick Children and a scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

He received degrees in Pharmacy (1990) and Medicine (1994) from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and completed postgraduate training in Internal Medicine (1998) followed by residency in Clinical Pharmacology (2000), a fellowship in Medical Toxicology (2002), and a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology (2003), all at the University of Toronto. He has received certification from the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Emergency Medicine (Medical Toxicology), and the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology.

He is presently the Sunnybrook site director for the program in Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology and is actively involved with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons subspecialty program in Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology as a member of the Nucleus committee and Vice Chair of the Examinations committee.

In addition to his clinical, teaching, and administrative activities, Dr. Juurlink maintains an active research program in the field of drug safety. His areas of particular interest include drug safety, adverse drug events, the consequences of drug-drug interactions in clinical practice, and the epidemiology of suicide and deliberate self-poisoning.

MD, CCFP, FRCPC
Meldon Kahan is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Medical Director of the Substance Use Service at Women’s College Hospital.  Over the years he has written a number of peer-reviewed articles, guidelines, and educational publications on addiction-related topics. He is the former project lead on the Mentoring, Education and Clinical-Tools for Addiction: Primary Care — Hospital Integration Project (META:PHI), funded by Health Quality Ontario and the Council of Academic Hospitals to expand best practices in managing addictions. He now leads the META:PHI Toronto project funded by the Toronto Central LHIN. His main interests are primary care and addiction, methadone and buprenorphine treatment, medical marijuana, and medical education in addiction. You can reach Dr. Kahan at Meldon.Kahan@wchospital.ca

Mae is a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner in Thunder Bay and has a degree in nursing and Master of Education (Curriculum Specialty).

Her nursing career has been diverse and includes Primary Health Care, mental health and addictions, adolescent health, maternal and child health and community health. She has a strong health policy and research background in community development, youth suicide, early psychosis, cancer care, health human resources and acquired brain injury.

She coordinates a Mobile Treatment Team that provides opiate-agonist treatment with Suboxone in remote and rural First Nations and at a First Nations high school.

She is a member of the Mental Health and Addictions Leadership Council, appointed by Minister of Health Eric Hoskins, responsible for the implementation of Phase 2 of the Mental Health and Addictions Strategy in Ontario.

She has worked as senior administrator responsible for First Nations health programs, both as Regional Director (Ontario) for Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health, and as Health Director at Nishnawbe Aski Nation, representing 49 First Nations with a total population of over 50,000 Ojibway and Cree living in the rural and remote north. Mae was a member of Temagami First Nation (Ojibway) near North Bay.

Karen Schafer is a family therapist with over 30 years experience working in a number of settings including residential, day treatment, mental health, outreach addictions and private practice. As well, she has had many years of teaching experience at Vanier College and the McGill Family Clinic in Montreal, Victoria University, City University and Ryerson University. Karen’s contributions include working with families that have a family member that is struggling with substance misuse and addictions, writing  family theory and practice curriculum, public speaking that included a radio show on social and relationship issues, consultation, family therapy training and supervision. She attended Concordia University and has a BA, BSW and MSW from McGill University. You can reach Karen by email at: karenschafer79@gmail.com

Rachel joined the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau, as the Deputy Director-Executive Lead, Cannabis Legalization in June 2018.  She is responsible for developing and implementing policy and operational plans to support organizational requirements under the legal cannabis regime, and other enforcement and government priorities.

Rachel is the Co-Chair of the Canadian Association Chiefs of Police Drug Advisory Committee and is the first civilian Chair of the Ontario Association Chiefs of Police Substance Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining the OPP, Rachel spent 16 years at Public Safety Canada leading and managing a variety of complex horizontal policy issues related to policing and public safety, including cannabis legalization; drug impaired driving; the opioids crisis; contraband tobacco; the economics of policing; and rail and urban transit security.

BSc (Hons), MD, FRCPC, CISAM, CCSAM
Chief Medical Officer, The Newly Institute
Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Calgary Departments of Psychiatry and Surgery

Co-Lead, Alberta Pain Strategy, AHS

Founder and Co-Lead, Community RAAM, AHS
Hotchkiss Brain Institute & Mathison Centre for Mental Health

Dr. Tanguay is a Psychiatrist who completed two fellowships, one in Addiction Medicine and one in Pain Medicine. He is a clinical assistant professor with the departments of Psychiatry and Surgery at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary.

Most recently Dr. Tanguay helped found and is the Chief Medical Officer of The Newly Institute, a disability and rehabilitation program dedicated to providing medical and psychological intervention for people living with complex and treatment resistant mental health disorders such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, and chronic pain. He was the Medical Lead for the Alberta Addiction Education Sessions and Opioid Dependency Treatment Education for Alberta Health Services (AHS) developing award winning educational programming. He was the Regional Director for Alberta and North West Territories for the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) where he sat as a board member, the former President of the Pain Society of Alberta, and continues to be the co-chair of the internationally recognized Alberta Pain Strategy. He is the founder of innovative programs including the Opioid Deprescribing Program with AHS, the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) Community Clinic with AHS, and the Transitional Outpatient Pain Program for Spine (TOPPS) clinic working with UofC spinal surgeons to optimize spinal surgery outcomes. He previously consulted with the Operational Stress Injury Clinic treating veterans and RCMP for trauma related injuries.

Academically, he is involved in research in trauma, addiction, chronic pain, opioids, psychedelics and cannabis and is a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Byrne is a consultant emergency physician at London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London and an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University. He has an outpatient practice in addiction medicine and sees patients across Ontario.

He received degrees in Medical Sciences (2010) and Medicine (2014) from Western University in London, Ontario, and completed postgraduate training in Emergency Medicine (2019) at the University of Toronto. During his residency training, he completed a Master of Science in Evidence-Based Health Care with distinction (2018) at the University of Oxford.

In his addition to his clinical and teaching activities, Dr. Byrne is involved with qualitative and quantitative clinical research, with areas of interest including cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, withdrawal management and anti-craving therapy for stimulant use disorder, and high-dose buprenorphine induction for opioid use disorder. He is an advocate for increased acute care resources to support those with substance use disorders who are interested in initiating medical treatment.

Lydia has been a peer-to-peer supporter at Far Canada since 2022 and has recently assumed the role of FAR’s online Family Support Group Facilitator. She is a graduate of Concordia University,

Lydia is a devoted wife and mother to two sons. Having lived experience with substance use disorders and mental health issues, she is committed to learning about addiction by completing: the Level 1 Certification in the Invitation to Change Approach from the CMC: Foundation for Change in 2022; as well as other courses related to Motivation and Recovery. In 2024, Lydia completed suicide prevention training offered by the Distress Centres of Greater Toronto, covering shifts for the 408 Inbound Team. She recently completed Family Connections^TM (FC) Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with the Sashbear Foundation.  Lydia is always eager to improve her communication and motivation skills through ongoing educational opportunities.

Doug has a Master of Business Administration as well as a Master of Education and lives in Ottawa with his wife Marianne. He has three children and two grandchildren. He has been retired from the business world for almost 15 years. Since retirement Doug was involved as a volunteer in leading a creativity and entrepreneurial skills program for Eastern Ontario youth for several years. Doug has done many triathlons and continues to enjoy cycling, swimming and running as well as canoeing, camping and cross country skiing. 

Doug has been involved with FAR for the past 8 years as a Peer Support Volunteer and for the past 4 years as Chair of FAR’s Education Committee. Doug has experience as a parent of a child who struggled with Substance Use Disorder.  His frustration in getting help for his own child has driven him to want to improve the support for those with SUD and for their families.  Of particular interest to Doug is the desire to improve the level of education and understanding of SUD among Canada’s professional community. 

Dr. Watts is a retired family doctor. She served her community for 43 years, first as a comprehensive family doctor, including delivering close to 1,000 babies, and later as an emergency physician and hospitalist. She finished her career by providing hospital care to elderly patients on the chronic care and rehab ward at Headwaters Healthcare in Orangeville,  Ontario. She was originally educated at University of Toronto, graduating in 1982.

Dr. Watts has lived with addiction in her family and in 1995 she lost her husband and father of her four children to complications of severe alcohol use disorder. She was one of the original founding board members of FAR and still provides medical consultation as needed.