Vincent Beswick-Escanlar is a family physician, flight surgeon and specialist in public health and preventive medicine. He was appointed to the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners in 2025.

As a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, he has international clinical experience spanning operations in Afghanistan, the Arctic, the Middle East and aboard ship in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. In progressive roles from primary care physician to medical officer of health, Vincent has had the honour to collaborate across a full breadth of health professionals and community leaders in deployed field, ship and domestic clinic settings. He has served on community health advocacy committees, as well as on national bodies like the National Advisory Committee on Immunisation and the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health, and international medical and scientific bodies amongst NATO and other allies.

Vincent credits his time as an auxiliary police constable in Fredericton in part for leading him towards specialising in public health and preventive medicine. Working in the clinic or emergency room, it can be hard to recognise the back story reality or root causes that drive illness or injury. But meeting people out where they actually live and work, you see more of the picture: policing brings a social perspective sometimes missed in clinical practice. Vincent also traces his focus on the social determinants of health to his experience with municipal planning departments and transit advocacy groups in Canada and the US, where he worked to bring a medical, evidence-informed lens to improving the health of communities, the quality of public services and the built environment.

Vincent was born in Calgary to immigrant parents from the Philippines and grew up mainly in Regina, but married into an east coast family. He continues to practice family medicine in the military as well as in community health centres, and holds teaching appointments in public health and preventive medicine in universities in Canada and the US. Vincent lives in Halifax with his wife and two kids. He runs awkwardly, cycles slowly and skates poorly, but writes fairly legibly (for a doctor) and reads relatively quickly.