Fil-Canadian surgeon appointed to Manitoba Senate

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Dr. Flordeliza (Gigi) Osler to the Manitoba’s Senate.

Winnipeg surgeon and assistant professor Dr. Flordeliza (Gigi) Osler has been appointed to the Senate for Manitoba, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office announced Monday, Sept. 26. She will replace former Justice Murray Sinclair,  who retired from the Red Chamber in January 2021.

“I feel like I have very big shoes to fill and I want to honor his shoes and work hard on behalf of all Manitobans. I love this province. Nothing makes me happier than to be able to represent Manitoba,” Dr. Osler, told The Winnipeg Free Press in an interview.

”So, I really feel like just an ordinary person lucky to live not only in this country but in this province.”

She hopes her appointment can inspire others.

“I’d like to tell everyone to have big dreams. It can happen. It happened to me and I just feel so absolutely humbled, fortunate and ready to get to work.”

“I am excited and it is good news for our community and country to have a talented woman tapped by the Prime Minister,” retired politician Dr. Rey Pagtakhan told philippinecanadiannews.com when asked for comment from his home in Winnipeg.

Pagtakhan was a trailblazer for Filipino politicians in Canada when he was elected to Parliament as a Liberal in 2008 serving until 2004. Like Osler, Pagtakhan was also a professor at the University of Manitoba and was a practicing pediatrician when he entered politics.

Osler is the second Filipino Canadian to be appointed to the Senate. The late Senator Tobias Enverga was appointed by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in 2012 for the province of Ontario. He died suddenly on November 12, 2017. Senators are appointed for life until age 75.

Rechie Valdez became the first Filipino Canadian woman to be elected to Parliament representing Mississauga–Streetsville in Ontario in 2021. With Osler’s appointment, there are now two Filipino Canadian members of the Canadian Parliament.

Dr. Gigi Osler told the Free Press her mother cried when she learned her daughter had been appointed to the Senate.

Her mother, Flor, was a nurse in the Philippines who came to Canada in 1965 and married Dr. Raj Sharma, who died in 2013.

“I think part of what got my mother so emotional last night was because she recalls how proud he was when I got into medical school. And so she was thinking how proud he would be at this moment.”

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Osler completed both medical school and residency training at the University of Manitoba. After completing Rhinology fellowship training in BC, she has  been in practice as a surgeon in Winnipeg since 1998 specializing in ENT (Otolaryngology-Head and Neck). Osler is the current Head of the Section of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at St. Boniface Hospital and is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Manitoba College of Medicine.^[

Her current medical leadership positions include:

• 2018-19 President of the Canadian Medical Association
• President-elect, Federation of Medical Women of Canada
• Regional Secretary, North America and Caribbean, IFOS
• Assistant Professor with the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Manitoba
• Member of the Professional Learning and Development Committees for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
• Past Chair of the Physician Health and Wellness Committee and past Chair of the Section of Otolaryngology for Doctors Manitoba
• Co-Chair 2015 Canadian Conference on Physician Health
• Past Chair of the Continuing Professional Development and Global Health Committees for the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

A dedicated advocate for global surgery and the promotion of safe, accessible surgical care, she volunteers annually on surgical missions to low and lower-middle income countries.

“This volunteer work inspires me to work harder for my patients and the health care system. I am also passionate about physician health and wellness and have worked to support the health and well-being of doctors,” she says in her website.

For the last several years Dr. Osler has been volunteering in Africa to help train other surgeons. Through an ongoing collaboration with Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute / Harvard University, University of British Columbia, University of Manitoba, and the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the group works at building up the educational infrastructure of the ENT Department of the Mbarara University of Science and Technology by expanding their clinical capacity to improve the quality of local care.

She is looking at how she can balance her obligations as a Senator and still run a practice. “I’m still trying to figure out those details and trying to ensure that my patients continue to get the care that they need either from their family doctor or from another (ear, nose and throat doctor)”, she told the Free Press.

Osler was the first female surgeon and the first racialized woman elected president of the Canadian Medical Association, where she led the development of the CMA’s first policy on equity and diversity. She’s no longer doing surgeries and has someone who can take on her academic responsibilities, Osler said.

She has mentored Filipino medical students and Filipino Canadians in a variety of sectors to increase their representation in leadership roles.

Osler said she wants to take her experiences on the front lines of health care to the halls of power and amplify the voices of the Manitobans who are not being heard.

“I have come, over the course of my career, to understand the importance of advocacy and policy and speaking out for the things that are important for our health, for our well-being, for representation and inclusion, and to speak up for those who aren’t always heard,” she said.

“I’ve seen how important it is to be at the table, to be part of the discussion, to add your voice to those decision making processes.”

She said COVID-19 split the cracks in Canada’s health-care system wide open. “I think the pandemic showed us how important our health is and how many other things affect your health: your financial well-being, the food you eat, the water you drink, the housing you have, the climate. I would like to bring my voice to the Senate, to those discussions.”

Osler said she never aspired to hold leadership roles as a doctor or to one day be a senator. She says she’s an “ordinary” child of immigrants who believed anything is possible with an education — something she and her mother talked about Monday, when the appointment was announced.

“She’s been absolutely overwhelmed and just in tears at all of this. She never could have imagined this for her kids. She came to Canada because she wanted a better life and she always told us — my two brothers and me — how lucky we were to live in Canada. And she always emphasized, ‘Get an education. Both my parents did,” Osler said.

”So, I really feel like just an ordinary person lucky to live not only in this country but in this province.”

Osler recounted that in the 1990s “surgery was still very much a male-dominated field. I was told, ‘Surgery’s too tough. You should look at pediatrics.’

According to Wikipedia, In 2011 she volunteered with the Canadian Helping Kids in Vietnam’s medical mission to Long Xuyên, which focused on delivering medical equipment and educating Vietnamese doctors and nurses.^[6] She has also been part of several missions to train surgeons in Africa and has spent several years in Mbarara.^[7][8] She has been an invited faculty member at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology.^[9]

In 2017, Osler defended the practice of “income sprinkling,” which allows high-earning professionals and business owners to reduce taxes by distributing income to family members who may do minimal work.^[10]

Osler believes that maintaining the health and wellness of oneself should be incorporated into medical training.^[15][16] In 2015 Osler co-chaired the Canadian Conference on Physician Health.^[4][17]