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Toronto Star Thu Feb 19 2015

In a potentially precedent-setting decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal granted patients the right to sue hospitals over privacy breaches Wednesday. The unanimous ruling said provincial health privacy laws are not a roadblock to patients who want to seek justice in the courts when hospital workers snoop into their medical records. The decision comes on the heel of a Star investigation into health-related privacy violations and oversights in Ontario's health privacy legislation.

"This case is a vindication for all of those victims the Star has been writing about," said Michael Crystal, lawyer for the patients. Wednesday's ruling could have sweeping implications for the province's 155 hospitals as it has given the green light to a multimillion-dollar privacy class action launched against Peterborough Regional Health Centre. The Peterborough hospital would not answer questions from the Star about whether it intends to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it would have its last chance to get the case tossed out. A massive privacy breach at the hospital between 2011 and 2012 saw hundreds of patient medical records snooped into and seven staff members fired. The breach included a domestic violence victim who was in hiding and 414 abortion files that were inappropriately accessed by a high- profile anti-abortion campaigner. A group of affected patients launched a $5.6-million privacy class action against the hospital, which in turn fought to have the case thrown out in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, arguing the courts had no jurisdiction over health-related privacy breaches.

The Globe and Mail Wed Mar 4 2015

Here we go again. Courts are being asked: Should citizens be allowed to buy private insurance for essential medical services? Or should citizens be restricted by what public health care provides, and when? This central question at the heart of single-tier public medicine was supposed to be before the B.C. Supreme Court this week. Instead, the provincial government discovered overlooked documents about wait times and asked for extra time. The delay matters little. Sooner or later, the issue of private health insurance for essential services will be before the B.C. court and then, almost certainly, before the Supreme Court of Canada again.

Dr. Brian Day is a long-time advocate of private medicine and the owner of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, which offers surgeries for patients who wish to pay. Dr. Day advertises his clinic outside the province, too, for those from elsewhere wishing to avail themselves of faster treatment than the public system can provide. Dr. Day has brought this case to court on behalf of patients whose health, he argues, has been imperilled by long wait times. As Dr. Day told The Globe and Mail, "This is a case about patients being able to provide for their own health when the government won't provide it." Dr. Day is wrong when he asserts that the government "won't provide" service. The issue is rather more about when.

Canada Newswire Mon Sep 29 2014

TORONTO, Sept. 29, 2014 /CNW/ - As Ontario's new Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins sits down with provincial and territorial Health Ministers for their fall meeting this week, experts and patient advocates hope that he'll carry a strong message. Across Canada advocates are calling on the B.C. Health Minister to hang tough on the Medicare court challenge which threatens open season on patient user fees for surgeries, diagnostics and other procedures. The case was scheduled to begin on September 8, but lawyers for both Brian Day, owner of one of the largest private clinics in Canada, and the B.C. government asked the court for a delay in order to negotiate a settlement. Negotiations are now happening behind closed doors and the court date is delayed until March 2015.

Following a provincial audit in 2012 which revealed that Day was charging hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlawful user fees to patients, Day filed a Charter Challenge to nullify the laws that he was violating. His case aims to bring down the laws that protect single-tier Medicare and forbid clinics like his from extra-billing patients and charging user fees for care that currently must be provided without charge under the public health care system. The litigation has far-reaching implications for the entire country. Day's clinics were first exposed by patients who complained they were unlawfully billed for medical procedures. The B.C. government responded by trying to audit the clinics. Day refused to let in auditors until forced by a court order, and even then the clinics did not fully comply with auditors. Auditors had access to only a portion of the clinics' billings and only one month's worth of data. Nevertheless, what they found was astonishing. In a period of about 30 days, patients were subject to almost half a million dollars in user charges. The five patients who brought the initial legal petition have had their trial delayed while Day's Charter Challenge to the laws upholding single-tier Medicare is heard. They are still waiting for redress.

National Post Mon Sep 14 2015

Letters

A dentist in Okotoks, Alberta, Dr. Allen was forced out of his profession while waiting for years for surgery to address his severe and debilitating back pain. What began in 2007 as a seemingly minor hockey injury gradually turned his life into a nightmare of around-the-clock pain. Normal tasks, like shovelling snow or tying shoelaces, became impossible. On one occasion, Dr. Allen watched helplessly as his one-yearold daughter, while crawling on a bed, lost her balance and fell off, and he could not move to catch her. Dr. Allen finally received a referral for surgery in early 2009, but no surgery could be performed

Toronto Star Fri Oct 16 2015

Health Minister Rona Ambrose acted for an "improper purpose" when, during a political and media firestorm, she banned drug products from Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex's two Indian facilities, a federal court judge has ruled. The decision, handed down by Justice Michael Manson this week, said Ambrose ignored the company's right to respond to the government's concerns before the sweeping regulatory action was taken a year ago. The judge also quashed the ban and told the minister to take back her public statements related to the ban. "The import ban was motivated by the minister's desire to ease pressure triggered from the media and in the House of Commons," the ruling said, adding that it was "an action taken without legal authority."

"As Minister of Health, I remain committed to protecting the health and safety of Canadians." A Health Canada spokesman said the department is reviewing the decision. After the Apotex suit was filed in court last year, Ambrose told the Star that she stood by her decision to ban Apotex products. "Canadians expect Health Canada to take the action needed to help protect them from drug safety risks," she said at the time. "We stand by our decision to take precautionary action to protect the health and safety of Canadians." During cross-examination of Health Canada witnesses during the case, officials stated there was no evidence that products "produced a risk or threat to the health of consumers," the judge noted in his ruling.

The Province Sun Jun 14 2015

Dr. Patrick McGeer, a distinguished neurology researcher at the University of B.C. and a former Olympian, served as an MLA from 1962 to 1986, the last 10 years as a cabinet minister. mcgeerpl@mail.ubc.ca mcgeerandassociates.ca The B.C. government is wasting your tax money on a court battle that has now been going on for more than six years. Initially, the government accused the Cambie Surgery Centre of violating B.C.'s Medicare Protection Act. The clinic launched a counter suit, joined later by six patients, on the grounds that the B.C. legislation violated the Charter of Rights. A defeat for the provincial government seems to be a certainty. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled in Chaoulli v Quebec that patients are "suffering and dying on wait lists" and that "access to a wait list is not access to care."

The court decided that if you are a Quebecer, you are protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Their reasoning has certainly come true since in the B.C. case, two of the original four plaintiffs have already died and a third is paralyzed for life. The province is ignoring the Supreme Court of Canada, apparently hoping its ruling will only apply in Quebec. The issue is whether the constitution allows you to spend your own money on your own health care and whether private clinics should be allowed to provide that care. The B.C. government says, no, you must join a queue for treatment. Queues are a euphemism for rationing. Canada is the only country in the world that has ever imposed such a system.

New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal Mon Oct 5 2015

ST. STEPHEN * A citizens' committee organized the meeting at the Garcelon Civic Center in St. Stephen to deal with the provincial government's plan to shut down provincial courts in St. Stephen and Grand Manan, and concerns about the future of the Charlotte County Hospital. Committee members said that 278 people attended. "I believe that small communities such as St. Stephen will become satellites of Saint John and be diminished. I believe that key services, such as key community services in health and education, should be safeguarded, and I believe that people are more important than provincial balance sheets," Victor Morford, spokesman for the Committee to save Lawrence Station School, said from the floor microphone. Saint Andrews lawyer David Bartlett spoke on behalf of the Charlotte County Barristers Society seeking to save the two courts. Finance Minister Roger Melanson announced in his budget speech on March 31 that courts in St. Stephen, Grand Manan and Sussex were no longer critical to the administration of justice with the new Saint John Law Courts open. He also announced that Grand Falls provincial court would close.

"We still risk closure of the operating room," Backman said. Surgery supports the emergency room and critical care unit, he said, likening it to a row of dominoes. The hospital had 101 beds and 334 staff in 1986 compared to 44 beds and 210 staff today, Backman said. The erosion started in 1987 when the government disbanded the local board and placed the hospital under a regional structure, he said. Backman said that the lack of "hospitalists" at the Charlotte County Hospital forces some patients to go to Saint John. A hospitalist is a medical doctor who looks after patients in hospitals. Without these specialists, a family physician has to look after his or her own patients once they are admitted, putting the doctor on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said.

A new court ruling on assisted death is raising questions about whether the Liberal government’s proposed law is constitutional, as the House of Commons prepares to vote Tuesday on a historic bill to legalize the practice.

When the Supreme Court declared last year that severely ill Canadians have a right to an assisted death, it did not restrict that right to the terminally ill or very elderly, as the Liberal government is doing in its proposed legislation. The top court said the right belongs to mentally competent adults who are suffering intolerably from an irremediable illness.

An Ontario court, while not ruling directly on the bill, echoed a decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal earlier this month, when it said that the Supreme Court’s minimum standard for the right to an assisted death is the loss of quality of life, not whether natural death is “reasonably foreseeable,” as stated in the Liberal bill.The basis for an assisted death, under the Supreme Court’s ruling, “is the threat the medical condition poses to a person’s life and its interference with the quality of that person’s life,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell said in a decision last week that has just come to light. “There is no requirement … that a medical condition be terminal or life-threatening.”

Toronto Star Fri Jul 24 2015

In a major blow to the Harper government, the Federal Court has struck down its so-called safe country list for refugees as unconstitutional. In a ruling Thursday, the court said Ottawa's designation by country of origin, or DCO, discriminates against asylum seekers who come from countries on this list by denying them access to appeals.

"Moreover, it perpetuates a stereotype that refugee claimants from DCO countries are somehow queue-jumpers or 'bogus' claimants who only come here to take advantage of Canada's refugee system and its generosity." It is yet another devastating hit to the Conservative government, which recently also lost two cases on constitutional grounds over the ban of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies and on health cuts for refugees.

Broadcast news Wed Sep 9 2015

OKOTOKS, Alta. - A former Calgary-area dentist who paid for back surgery in Montana rather than wait to have it done in Alberta has lost his challenge of a lower-court ruling that determined he could not sue the government over a delay in getting the procedure done in his own province. Darcy Allen, who is from Okotoks, Alta., had argued unsuccessfully in Court of Queen's Bench that the Alberta government's monopoly on health care was unconstitutional.

Allen's legal team had sought to have a 2005 Supreme Court of Canada decision expanded to Alberta. That decision struck down a Quebec law that banned private insurance for medically necessary services. However, a Court of Queen's Bench judge ruled Allen had failed to establish a sufficient link between the government's practices and the harm he suffered.

By Ella Bedard | January 30, 2015

Saskatchewan public sector workers have won back the right to strike. In a 5-2 majority, the Court deemed that the essential service law, which prevents public sector employees from striking, violates section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects freedom of association. The Court has given Saskatchewan one year to enact new legislation.

The decision is a further recognition of Canada's international obligations under Internal Labour Organization (ILO) convention to uphold these rights, added Yussuff.

It is time for Canada to lead in re-evaluating what type of trade agreements are needed for this century.

By HOWARD MANN PUBLISHED : Wednesday, March 9, 2016

While the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) text was in long-term legal scrub, it had taken a back seat to discussions over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) concluded by the Conservative government during the last election campaign. The TPP has attracted vocal opposition from very diverse sources in Canada, including major innovators, labour unions and organizations focused on achieving sustainable development. With the release now of the final CETA text—the trade agreement between Canada and the EU—new debate is needed on it as well.

May 15, 2014 - Saskatchewan Working People Have Their Day at the Supreme Court of Canada

Tomorrow morning, as the culmination of a legal process that began in 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCOC) will hear the Charter challenge of provincial Bills 5 & 6. The SFL et al will argue, as they did at both the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench and the Court of Appeal, that so-called “essential services” legislation and the changes made to the former Trade Union Act are not consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The SCOC will also hear arguments for why the right to strike should be enshrined as a Charter-protected right.

Feds gear up for battle against private health care THE NATIONAL Mon Aug 29 2016, 9:00pm ET Byline: CATHERINE CULLEN; DR. BRIAN DAY; JANE PHILPOTT WENDY MESLEY (HOST): - WENDY MESLEY (HOST): Good evening, I'm Wendy Mesley and this is "The National." DR. BRIAN DAY (CAMBIE SURGERY CENTRE):

Our goal is actually to fix Medicare. WENDY MESLEY (HOST): A B.C. clinic' fights to expand private health care. Catherine Cullen finds out how the federal government plans to fight back. - Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is gearing up for a fight, the outcome of which will affect all Canadians. It's a battle between public and private health care in a B.C. Court and CBC News has learned that the feds are entering the fray, armed with some powerful evidence against for-profit care. The CBC's Catherine Cullen has the details. DR. BRIAN DAY (CAMBIE SURGERY CENTRE): You have a lot of arthritis but this is not normal.

CATHERINE CULLEN (REPORTER): For nearly two decades the Cambie Surgery Centre has offered private healthcare. Some patients come from other countries, some are covered by workplace compensation and some are just willing to pay out of pocket for faster treatment. DR. BRIAN DAY (CAMBIE SURGERY CENTRE): What is morally wrong with Canadians spending their own money on their own health care? CATHERINE CULLEN (REPORTER): Today Dr. Brian Day is getting ready to go to court to defend that argument. DR. BRIAN DAY (CAMBIE SURGERY CENTRE): Our goal is actually to fix Medicare and that's what I think we will achieve with this lawsuit.

OTTAWA—This country’s highest court ultimately gave Parliamentarians 16 months to craft legislation on assisted dying. That apparently wasn’t enough.Missing the court-imposed June 6 deadline will not plunge this nation into some type of chaotic constitutional abyss, but the past 16 months leading to that deadline have taught us a lot about our political system and the men and women who represent us.

It fell to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, then at the helm of the third party, to call for an all-party committee to begin work on the issue. Trudeau, prophetically, said a year did not seem adequate to write legislation when Quebec took more than four years, but warned, “if we do nothing, . . . Canada will find itself without any laws governing physician-assisted death. That kind of legislative vacuum serves no one—not people who are suffering, not their anxious family members, not the compassionate physicians who offer them care.’’

But the work of a joint Commons-Senate committee was done in warp speed, its work was largely ignored and the Liberal push to meet the deadline meant a parliamentary committee unwilling to accept substantial amendments. A bill which comes down the middle on the question, without fully responding to the court decision, led to parliamentary skirmishes over time limits on debate, opposition obstruction, a physical skirmish in the House and a deadline drifting away.

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on April 11, 2014.

On April 2, Justice P. R. Jeffrey of Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench rejected the claim put forward by lawyer John Carpay on behalf of Darcy Allen that prohibition on private health insurance in Alberta infringes on Mr. Allen’s Charter Rights. Mr. Carpay based his court argument on the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Chaouilli case that a ban on private health insurance under Quebec law infringed Mr. Chaoulli’s Charter right to security of the person. This claim was not a rejection of access to health care but rather recognition that allowing private insurance to determine Albertans’ access to health care is not a solution to the problems in our public health care system. The Alberta Court found Chaoulli didn’t apply. That’s no surprise. The Supreme Court clearly stated Chaoulli applied only to the specifics of the Quebec case. This Alberta case was simply political grandstanding. We can’t build the health system we want through the courts. A small, angry minority of Albertans wants a two-tier health system where a few people get whatever they want while everyone else waits. The great majority of us want good health care based on need, not ability to pay. The minority just can’t seem to live with losing this argument. Or do Mr. Carpay et al believe in democracy and the rule of law only when they win?

The Province Fri May 29 2015

The much-delayed trial dealing with the future of private health care in B.C. is expected to be adjourned for another six months, a judge was told Thursday. During a brief appearance in court, government lawyer Jonathan Penner told B.C. Supreme Court Associate Austin Cullen that he anticipates the trial will not get underway until November.

Dr. Brian Day, the founder of the private Cambie Surgery Centre, is challenging the constitutionality of Canada's public health care laws. He argues that patients should have the right to pay for care in private clinics if waits in the public system are too onerous. In an email Thursday, Day said the delay was "very regrettable."

Saskatchewan Court of Appeal: No Charter Right to Strike Until SCC Says So

The much awaited decision of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has arrived.  I reviewed the background to this case here. The Court of Appeal went cautious, and ruled essentially that whether or not the Charter protects a right to strike is a matter that should be left to the Supreme Court of Canada to decide.