Gail is a retired social worker with a Masters degree from the University of Toronto.

After years of frontline work, she started and ran programs within various Community Health Centre’s focusing primarily on youth mental health, employment, and homeless issues. She was responsible for initiating and implementing various innovative programmes that were well recognized and received many awards. The latter part of her career was as a consultant, guiding social service agencies through their accreditation process.

Leading up to her retirement in late 2023, she noticed she was having a lot of difficulty with her memory. After much testing, she was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in the spring of 2025.

Gail was born and raised in Toronto, with her early years being dominated by summer camp life. Besides many years as a counsellor, she was also involved in many theatre productions, often playing the lead, or as piano accompanist.

She met her husband Bill more than 30 years ago and they have one daughter, who also lives in Toronto.

Gail and Bill attended the Walking the Talk for Dementia conference in Spain, June of 2026 and are WTD Alumni, Walking the Talk for Dementia Institute (WTDI) affiliates. This experience was so emotional and enlightening that they both decided, considering Gail’s background, advocacy work in this area was for them. Engagement of People with Lived Experience of Dementia (EPLED) Advisory Group was a natural place where they could apply their lived experience toward advocacy for those affected by dementia, along with helping to reduce the associated stigma and misinformation.