Another chapter in the continuing saga of medical assistance in dying (“MAID”) was completed on January 31, 2018 when the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled on the constitutionality of the “Effective Referral Provisions” of the Human Rights Policy and MAID Policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (“CPSO”). (In this blog post, I am focussed on the MAID Policy but the judgment refers to the Policies.) The Effective Referral Provisions require physicians who are unwilling to provide, amongst other matters, MAID to their patients, on moral or religious grounds to provide an effective referral to another health care provider. The Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies, and Canadian Physicians for Life, along with a number of individual “objecting” physicians had challenged the Effective Referral Policy on the basis that the Policy violated their freedom of religion and conscience protected by s. 2(a) of the Charter and their right to equality protected by s. 15. Justice Wilton-Siegel, (Justices Lococo and Matheson concurring) disagreed and dismissed the challenges: The Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada v. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, 2018 ONSC 579.
Category Archives: Right to life
Constitutional surgery gone awry or lessons in how to make the cut? Cambie Surgeries Corporation v. British Columbia (Medical Services Commission)
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For about nine years here on Canada’s West Coast, a constitutional battle has been fought over the future of public health care. The opening shots were fired in 2008 by some individual patients against a private surgery clinic, Cambie Surgeries Corporation (“Cambie”), claiming that Cambie was illegally extra-billing and that the Medical Services Commission (the “MSC”) was not properly enforcing the law. Cambie then responded by launching its own action in early 2009, challenging the constitutionality of provisions of the provincial Medicare Protection Act claiming that they caused undue delay in access to health care resulting in a violation of the patients’ rights to life, liberty and security of the person as guaranteed by s. 7 of the Charter (amongst other challenges). Since 2009, there have been over thirty reported decisions of the Supreme Court of British Columbia dealing with procedural issues. Over twenty of those reported decisions have been issued since the commencement of trial (I am sure that there are many more unreported decisions).
2016 – a year in constitutional retrospect
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As 2016 fades into the distance, I thought that it might be useful to look back and see what were some of the biggest constitutional developments in the Old Year. There were many but I think that a few stand out for me. A number do not involve constitutional judicial determinations but they are major Canadian constitutional developments nonetheless.
Medical assistance in dying – the Liberal government responds to the Supreme Court
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More than 14 months after the Supreme Court first held that the Criminal Code provisions forbidding physician-assisted death were unconstitutional in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5, and almost three months to the day from the date that the Supreme Court gave a four month extension to its suspension of the declaration of unconstitutionality (see Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2016 SCC 4), the Liberal government has introduced its legislative response with a bill, Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying).
Homeless campers score a win in BC using s. 7’s life, liberty and security of the person: Abbotsford (City) v. Shantz, 2015 BCSC 1909
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On Wednesday, October 21, 2015, Chief Justice Hinkson of the British Columbia Supreme Court gave effect to the arguments of an association called Drug War Survivors (“DWS”) that the City of Abbotsford’s bylaws that forbade sleeping in the City’s parks or the temporary erection of shelters without permits to be contrary to s. 7’s protection of security of the person under the Charter and were therefore of no force or effect. In an 81 page reasons for judgment in Abbotsford (City) v. Shantz, 2015 BCSC 1909 that reviewed the evolving jurisprudence under s. 7 of the Charter and specifically previous British Columbian decisions respecting a similar challenge of the City of Victoria’s bylaws, Chief Justice Hinkson made it clear that, while there was not a positive obligation on the part of the municipality to provide shelter to its homeless population, so long as there was insufficient shelter available, the municipality could not prohibit the homeless from doing what they needed to do in order to ensure their own life, liberty and security of their persons.
Constitutionally Canadian 