CAMH Board Chair – personally committed to serving

Dan Burns, CAMH’s incoming Board of Trustees chair, sat down recently to give his view of the road ahead for CAMH in the next few years, some of its key accomplishments, and the environment in which the organization is operating. He also shared his own personal reasons for volunteering to serve an organization like CAMH.

Dan knows the healthcare system. He retired in 2002 as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and serves as director, trustee or advisor to several organizations ranging from the Maytree Foundation to the Ireland Park Foundation to the Quebec Ministry of Health.

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Watch this video interview, or scroll down for a more complete professional bio of Dan Burns.

Daniel Burns Bio Information

Daniel Burns, a longtime senior public servant, retired from the position of Deputy Minister at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care at the end of January, 2002. He is a director or trustee of several corporations, teaches and consults in public policy and public administration.

As well as Chair of the Board of CAMH, he is a member of the Board of the Maytree Foundation, Secretary of the Board of the Ireland Park Foundation, and an Advisory Board member for Specialty Care, a company in the long term care and retirement home businesses. He is a member of the Advisory Board to the central Ontario division of the Salvation Army and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Quebec Ministry of Health on the reconstruction of the teaching hospitals in Montreal. From 1991 until 2003 he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Queens University and is still the Chair of the Campus Planning and Development Committee there, a post he has held for 15 years. In the past he has been a director of the United Way of Greater Toronto, The Institute of Public Administration of Canada and the Metro Toronto Community Foundation.

Over the past few years he has taught at Queens University, the University of Toronto, and at the University of Waterloo, where he was the ‘Planner in Residence”. As a consultant he has provided advice and support to all three levels of Government, to industry associations, and to private companies.

He was appointed Deputy Minister of Health and Long Term Care in February, 2000, and was responsible for the largest health organization in Canada, with a budget of $22billion. During this period Mr. Burns was a member of the Boards of Directors of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Canada Health Infoway.

From June 1999 to February 2000, Mr. Burns was the Deputy Minster at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and from June 1998 until June 1999 he was the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade, and Tourism. During this period Mr. Burns was a member of the Boards of the Canadian Tourism Commission, Ontario Place, and the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund. He was the Chair of the Board of the Immigrant Investor Corporation. In addition, from 1998 until 2001 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Realty Corporation.

From June 1995 until June 1998 Mr. Burns was Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. It was a period of enormous change in the organization, responsibilities, and financing of local government in Ontario. From September 1991 until June 1995 he was the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Housing. During this period the Ministry financed the biggest growth in publicly financed housing in the history of the province. Between 1991 and 1998, Mr. Burns served terms as the Chair of the Boards of Directors of the Ontario Mortgage Corporation and of the North Pickering Development Corporation. He also served terms as a member of the Boards of Directors of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust and of the Ontario Clean Water Agency.

Born in Ottawa in 1948, Mr. Burns received his B.A.(Hon.) in geography and economics from Queen’s University in 1970 and his M.Sc. in urban and regional planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1971. He is a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

In 1971 he worked for the Federal Government’s Low Income Housing Task Force and the worked for three years for the Ontario Welfare Council. In 1975 he joined the staff of the City of Toronto’ Planning Board as a community planner. In 1978 he was appointed Director of the Board’s Neighbourhood Planning Division. In addition to responsibility for developing community plans, this Division had responsibilities in areas such as development control, social planning, and neighbourhood improvement. In 1984 he became Director of the City’s Central Core and Waterfront Planning Division. This Division was responsible for planning and development control in the City’s downtown as well as planning work on urban design, heritage preservation, and the development of the railway lands area including Skydome. In 1998 Mr. Burns was appointed Commissioner of Housing for the City of Toronto. He was responsible for the City’s non-profit housing company, Cityhome, and for its residential land development program.