Photo caption: Stéphan Plourde, Pierre Corriveau, Marie-Lison Fougère and Nya Njeuga, newly elected directors of Montfort’s board.
By: Martin Sauvé, Director of Communications, Hôpital Montfort.
When Ontarians think of hospital governance, they typically picture a single board of a dozen volunteer directors. At Montfort, Ontario’s Francophone academic hospital based in Ottawa, the picture looks quite different: a 100-member Association is the cornerstone of the hospital’s governance structure, anchoring the Board in a vast community of ambassadors.
The 100 volunteer members of the Association de l’Hôpital Montfort are far more than a symbolic constituency. They elect the members of the Board of Directors at the hospital’s Annual Meeting; act as ambassadors for Montfort across Ontario, amplifying the hospital’s mission, visibility and outreach through their respective networks; and serve as a living link between the hospital and communities it serves, bringing forward the perspectives, expectations and lived experience of the populations Montfort serves.
The Association is also the talent pool from which Montfort’s board, as well as the boards of related entities like the Institut du Savoir Montfort, the hospital’s knowledge institute, recruit their directors. This deliberate design ensures that governance leadership at every level emerges from a community that has already demonstrated commitment to the hospital’s mission.
Diversity by Design, Skills by Intention
The Association is built on two complementary principles: reflecting the diversity of the communities Montfort serves and assembling the skills the hospital needs to thrive as an academic hospital with a provincial mandate.
Recruitment is guided by a skills matrix that targets expertise in areas such as governance, the private sector, information technology, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, while actively inviting candidates from ethnocultural, Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, persons with disabilities, youth, and recognized Francophiles. Members must be Francophones or Francophiles, 18 or older, and reside in Ontario — but they are intentionally recruited from across the province, well beyond Ottawa.
The reach of this model was on full display at the 2025 and 2026 Annual Meetings. In June 2025, 14 new members were elected from across Ontario —O ttawa, Hamilton, Toronto, Windsor, North Bay, Sudbury, Kirkland Lake and St-Catharines — including former senior executives from the federal and provincial public services, a senator, the heads of national francophone organizations, school board and postsecondary education leaders. In June 2026, five more exceptional Ontarians joined the Association, and the Board itself was expanded from 12 to 14 elected directors to reflect the growth of Montfort’s mandate.
Montfort’s four-point provincial mandate
- Participate in planning and supporting French-language health services, including clinical support for patients and health professionals in communities across Ontario;
- Support the Government of Ontario in meeting its obligations under the French Language Services Act;
- Serve as a centre of excellence and a hub for training health care professionals in French, while ensuring the stability and coordination of clinical placements in French;
- Support research and teaching activities worthy of a university hospital.
Why it Matters for the System
For a hospital with a distinctive provincial mandate, this model offers three concrete strengths.
The first is stronger community representation. A 100-member Association — including about 20 members from outside the Ottawa region — brings 100 sets of community eyes, ears and networks to the hospital’s strategic conversations; a depth of representation difficult to replicate with a board alone. Members live in the communities Montfort serves, encounter its patients, families and partners in their daily lives, and carry those perspectives back into the governance process.
The second is a richer pipeline of board talent. Members serve, contribute, and demonstrate their judgment in committees and working groups before being considered for the Board, supporting a truly skills-based and diversity-conscious nomination process. This progressive engagement allows the hospital to identify future directors who have already internalized Montfort’s mission, culture and strategic priorities.
The third is a resilient base of advocacy. Montfort’s history — including the SOS Montfort mobilization of the late 1990s to save the hospital from closure — has shown how decisive community ambassadors can be when a hospital’s mission is challenged. The Association keeps that capacity alive, ready to be activated when the hospital, its patients or its Francophone mandate require a strong, organized voice.
These strengths are also part of the reasons why the government of Ontario solicited Montfort, along with the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario, to be the founding members of the new French Language Health Planning Centre, established in 2025.
A Model Worth Celebrating
Ontario’s model of local, independent, volunteer hospital governance is a strength of its system. Montfort’s 100-member Association is one expression of that strength; a structure that institutionalizes community voice, broadens the geography of governance, and ensures that the leaders elected to steer the hospital truly emerge from the communities they serve.
As Montfort implements its 2024–2028 Strategic Plan, recognized in 2026 as leading practice by Accreditation Canada and the Health Standards Organization, its 100 ambassadors will continue to play a central role in shaping a bold Francophonie for healthy communities.