Eilish Cleary

Eilish Cleary (October 22, 1963 – March 22, 2024) was an Irish-born Canadian physician, health officer, and public health advocate who served as the Chief Medical Officer of Health in New Brunswick from 2007 until her termination in 2015, following a controversial decision by the provincial government. Shortly before her dismissal, she was studying glyphosate, a herbicide that is used in the province and has been characterized as potentially being carcinogenic to humans.

Born in Dublin, Cleary became the country's youngest doctor upon graduating from Trinity College. She later moved to Canada where she served as a public health official in Manitoba before moving to New Brunswick to work there. After her termination, Cleary continued working as a public health official for other provinces until her death in 2024 from ovarian cancer. She received multiple awards and honours throughout her career, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee and Platinum Jubilee medals as well as appointments to various institutions such as the University of Manitoba and the University of New Brunswick.

Early life and career Eilish Cleary was born on October 22, 1963, in Dublin, Ireland. She was one of five children born to John and Mary Cleary. She attended secondary school at Pobal Scoil Iosa (now Malahide Community School), Cleary and her family moved to Canada in 1998. She initially lived and worked in Manitoba,

Public health in New Brunswick Cleary later moved to New Brunswick, By August 2008, she was the acting chief and, by January 2009, was the Chief Medical Officer of Health. Under this role, Cleary played an important role in the province's fight against the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Cleary, along with fellow health official Paul Van Buynder, frequently encouraged the public to get vaccinated against, resulting in New Brunswick having one of the highest vaccination rates against the flu.

In 2012, following growing public advocacy against the shale gas industry in the province, Cleary issued the 82-page Chief Medical Officer of Health's Recommendations Concerning Shale Gas Development in New Brunswick, a report about the negative impacts of fracking on public health, air, and water pollution. Between 2014 and 2015, Cleary made two trips to Africa to help local health officials deal with Ebola. and later terminated from her position by the provincial government, then-controlled by the Liberal Party led by Premier Brian Gallant. According to John Chilibeck of the Telegraph-Journal, Cleary "had told people her office was embarking on a study of the health effects of industrial herbicide spraying". Two days later, JDI spokeswoman Mary Keith issued a "sharply worded" statement in response, calling the article a "sensational story" and accusing CBC of presenting "an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory as fact," further claiming that the news outlet "falsely implied that [JDI] is or was involved in some sort of conspiracy against Dr. Cleary because JDI uses glyphosate". The statement also called for CBC to "immediately remove the story from their website, publish a full retraction, and apologize for their appalling behavior". Poitras responded back on Twitter with a tweet stating, "We stand by our story." Officials who publicly expressed support for Cleary included David Butler-Jones, Robert Strang, and her successor, Jennifer Russell. The decision was also condemned by the Green Party of New Brunswick, with party leader David Coon calling it "outrageous" in a statement. Coon, a friend of Cleary, According to then-health minister Victor Boudreau, Cleary's termination was a "personnel matter, and not politically motivated", although the circumstances of her termination remained unclear. In January 2016, Cleary reached a confidential settlement with the province.

Cleary was later described by Chilibeck as being "mostly silent about her termination," referring to it only as "a troubling experience". as well as by The Daily Gleaner, and The Globe and Mail. Jula Hughes, an associate professor at the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law, explained that the term "without cause" in this context meant "there [wa]s likely no reason that would hold up in court for firing Cleary".

Following the settlement, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio-Canada took the province to court for failing to present information they had requested under the Access to Information Act. The Court of Queen's Bench ruled in favor of Radio-Canada, with Justice Zoël Dionne ordering that the settlement amount was public information. It was revealed that Cleary had received in severance by the provincial government and that her termination had been notified on December 7, 2015, after she had been placed on leave on November 2. Critics such as Mount Allison University political science professor Mario Levesque speculated that the settlement was "hush money" and part of the government's attempts to silence Cleary.

Cleary spent time working in the public health sectors of other provinces In October 2021, she criticized the province's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the amount of restrictions removed, having argued that "vaccination rates remained too low among health care and long-term care workers, teachers and school staff".

Awards and honours Cleary's 2012 shale gas report earned her the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors' Environmental Health Review Award in 2013. That same year, the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick awarded Cleary with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She was also awarded with the New Brunswick Medical Society's Dr. Donald Morgan Service Award, and has been appointed to multiple positions including a Manitoba Centre for Health Policy associate, a University of New Brunswick adjunct professor, and as a Faculty of Medicine assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. In October 2015, Cleary received the Paul Harris Fellowship from one of Fredericton's three Rotary Clubs. In 2023, she further received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal.

Personal life and death Cleary married Gerard Beirne in 1989 and later divorced in 2015; She later lived in Penniac with her partner, Paul Meyer. she was cremated and her ashes were sent back to Ireland. Diane Peters of The Globe and Mail described Cleary a "fearless defender of public health".