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Dr. Paul Cappon was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Council on Learning in October 2004. A prominent educator, doctor and administrator, Dr. Cappon has been a lifelong education advocate, community supporter and author of numerous publications on learning and community medicine. He has earned degrees in several fields including a PhD in sociology from the Université de Paris, a medical degree (MD) from McMaster University and a family medicine specialization from Dalhousie University.
Since the 1970s, Dr. Cappon has built a remarkable public service career. Prior to joining the Canadian Council on Learning, he held the post of Director General of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. CMEC is the mechanism through which Ministers of Education from across Canada consult and act on matters of mutual interest.
Dr. Cappon also served as Vice President, Academic, at Laurentian University and has been a faculty member at several Canadian universities including Laurentian, McGill, Saint Mary's and The University of British Columbia, teaching both sociology and medicine.
In addition to his contributions in academia, Dr. Cappon served, among other roles, as Director of AIDS Studies at the Montreal General Hospital. Dr. Cappon is a member of the International Coordinating Council at the State of the World Forum, as well as being a member of the Historica Council of the Historica Foundation of Canada. He is also Chair of the Policy Action Group on Learning for the Commission on Globalization. In 2002, he received the Commemorative Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal for his significant contributions to his profession. He is fluent in French and English and has a working knowledge of Italian and German.
Paul Bélanger, Ph.D., is currently a professor in the Education Faculty at the Université du Québec à Montréal and director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Lifelong Learning. He celebrates more than three decades of leadership, service and participation in the field of adult and continuing education.
In 2000, Dr. Bélanger became president of the International Council of Adult Education. In that post, he has researched adult learning policies, strategies and plans of 24 countries throughout the world. He was director of the UNESCO Institute for Education from 1989 to 1999. He led UNESCO in developing International Adult Learners’ Week, a celebration of adult learning that has been adopted in 50 countries. Dr. Bélanger is a Member of the Russian Education Academy, and Life Member of the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE) in Great Britain.
Dr. Bélanger has contributed to enhance the visibility and stature of adult and continuing education as a field of practice. He served as secretary-general of the 5th International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), held in Hamburg, Germany in 1997. The conference brought together more than 1,500 people from 135 nations. Dr. Bélanger helped the conference produce two significant guides for the future of the field: The Hamburg Declaration and Agenda for the Future.
Dr. Bélanger earned a master’s degree in political science at the University of Montréal. He undertook graduate studies at Manchester University in the United Kingdom, and received a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris in 1976. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Surrey.
He is author and co-author of many publications and papers including Portrait of Work-related Learning in Québec (2008), and Unlocking Peoples’ Creative Force: a Transnational Analysis of Adult Learning Policies (2000).
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