Dr. Qais Ghanem is a physician, teacher, broadcaster, activist and poet. He is a Graduate of the University of Edinburgh, was on the clinical faculty at McMaster University, and currently is on the Faculty of the University of Ottawa, practicing medicine at the Ottawa Hospital where he is Director of the Sleep Centre; and the National Defence Medical Centre, where he is Director of the Neurophysiology and Sleep Laboratory. He has over 20 medical publications. He is past president of the Canadian Society of Clinical Neurophysiologists 2002-2005.

In his voluntary non-professional capacity, Dr. Ghanem has been Past President of the Arab Canadian University Graduates Association (1992-2002), Past Chair of the Education Committee of Ottawa Chapter of Fair Vote Canada, member of the Ottawa Chapter of the Council of Canadians and a member of the Ottawa Health Coalition (for universal public health care). In 2002, he was also the initiator and co-founder of Potlucks for Peace, a dialogue group of Jews and Arabs in Ottawa.

Dr. Ghanem's broadcaster and activist roles have lead to a weekly Friday noon radio show on CHIN Radio 97.9FM entitled “Dialogue with Diversity” http://www.dialoguewithdiversity.com/ where he interviews people from different ethnic groups every Friday at noon. The radio show is supported by a website where he uploads these audio tapes and the pictures of his guests. He is also a published poet, and some of his poetry is on this website. He is frequently invited as a speaker on peace and human rights issues. Dr. Ghanem is quite familiar with utilizing media and internet technologies to spread important messages to the public. His interest in breaking down barriers between different groups led him to start a web page entitled Coming Events, chronologically listing the social and political events of all ethnic and social groups in Ottawa.

Dr. Ghanem was born in Yemen, moved to Canada 37 years ago and has lived in Ottawa South for the past 13 years. He speaks English, French, Arabic and basic Italian. He is married with two daughters and two grandsons. His personal motto is SCSC which stands for Stop Complaining - Start Contributing.

Running for the Green Party in the next Federal Election is his way of contributing to building a better future for his and all other grandchildren. He has promised to raise all the issues that others are afraid or unwilling to raise, and to demand accountability from government. He believes very strongly in the equality of people irrespective of origin or education or income. He has always recognized that people want respect, want to be heard and often want to contribute to society, and he will dedicate his time to achieve that. He hopes to make a palpable difference.