Persecution of doctors in Canada: Difference between revisions
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"Proper medical care" involves giving the patient 'a choice' between their job and bodily autonomy. | "Proper medical care" involves giving the patient 'a choice' between their job and bodily autonomy. | ||
The jduges' decision also have a different interpretation of facts compared to the motion judge regarding whether the actions of the CPSO could be politically motivated: | |||
<blockquote>This is not a case where an administrative proceeding is fatally flawed, or the Court might intervene to prevent disclosure of privileged information. There are no exceptional grounds here that warrant a review of the Investigation Decision at this time. '''The issues perceived by the motion judge''' who considered the possible intervention in the application under s. 87 of the Code '''as possibly being of concern (the idea that the actions of the CPSO were politically motivated''', and that the actions of Dr. Kilian in the public statements she made and the exemptions issued over her name and signature were based on research and science) simply do not arise in this case.</blockqute> | |||
Judges: Swinton, Lederer and LeMay JJ | Judges: Swinton, Lederer and LeMay JJ | ||
Revision as of 22:59, 29 September 2023
Doctors with at least one 'victory' against the college
Akbar Khan
He details his multi-year fight against the CPSO at CPSOcrimes.com. The website lists various other doctors who were able to hold onto their license for some time. For many years, he was able to retain his license but he ultimately lost it in 2022.
Khan appealed to the Ontario divisional court, which ruled against him. The court decision implicitly defers to the CPSO in determining what is and isn't the standard of care:
The use of treatments that are not part of generally accepted or “conventional” therapies or the use of “conventional medications” in an unconventional or “off-label” manner is governed by Policy Statement #3-11 issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario entitled “Complementary/Alternative Medicine.”
The CPSO's CAM policy can be found at https://www.cpso.on.ca/en/Physicians/Policies-Guidance/Policies/Complementary-Alternative-Medicine/Advice-to-the-Profession-Complementary-and-Alterna
CANLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2023/2023onsc2096/2023onsc2096.html
CPSO: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Akbar-Nauman-Khan/0051270-65249
Kulvinder Kaur Gill
For some reason, the CPSO dropped one of its cases against Gill. See The Democracy Fund's statement: https://www.thedemocracyfund.ca/cpso_drops_disciplinary_proceedings_ontario_physician_opposing_covid_policies The investigation report against Dr. Gill and her lengthy submissions in response to it cannot be publicly disclosed.
Concerns remain on her record.
CPSO: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Gill-Kulvinder-Kaur/0233347-84436
Chris Pinto
In 1986, Pinto organized a doctors' strike that shut down emergency wards. He resigned from membership in 2018 after terms and conditions were imposed in 2017.
CPSO: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Pinto-Christopher/0022717-27508
Edward Leyton
CPSOcrimes.com briefly discusses Leyton's conflict with the CPSO.
Leyton testified at the National Citizens Inquiry. https://rumble.com/v2or6fs-dr-edward-leyton-shares-his-perspective-on-early-treatment-protocols-ottawa.html?start=1350
On Aug 1 2023, he resigned from being a licensed doctor. https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Leyton-Robert---Edward-Geoffery/0023889-28711
Persecuted doctors
Mark Trozzi, Crystal Luchkiw, and Patrick Phillips
Licenses suspended. Phillips has given up his license while Trozzi and Luchkiw continue their fight against the colleges. Represented by Michael Alexander.
Phillips was prevented from prescribing fluvoxamine for COVID-19. A few months later, the Ontario Science Table recommended fluvoxamine for acute COVID-19.
Luchkiw: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Luchkiw-Crystal/0280678-97606 Trozzi: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/M-Trozzi/0048800-62778 Phillips: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Phillips-Patrick----Brian/0310033-109364
Ira Bernstein
Sent to re-education over COVID early treatment, vax exemptions, mask exemptions, IVM, and HCQ.
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/I-Bernstein/0048404-62382
Mary O'Connor
Feb 2023 - While allegations of professional misconduct were pending before the Discipline Tribunal but not yet determined and her practice was under investigation, Dr. O'Connor voluntarily agreed to resign from the College and not to apply or reapply for registration as a physician in Ontario or any other jurisdiction. https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Mary-Elizabeth-OConnor/0020791-25579
Vinod Nair
In 2022 and 2023, the CPSO imposed terms and conditions on his license regarding IVM. His practice was restricted to anaesthesiology.
CPSO: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/V-Nair/0132231-70381
Christopher Hassell
Lost his license over vaccine exemptions, mask exemptions, ivermectin, and misinformation.
CPSO: https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Hassell-Christopher---Hilton/0026114-30937
Rochagne Kilian
License suspended in 2021. The CPSO only specifies that she failed to co-operate with the College's investigation.
It is alleged that Dr. Kilian engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct and/or failed to respond appropriately or within a reasonable period of time to a written inquiry from the College, by, commencing in approximately October 2021, failing to co-operate with the College’s investigation, including by failing to provide information, records and documents requested by College staff.
A document on the CPSO website states that she was "barred from issuing medical exemptions for COVID vaccines, masks, tests".
According to the Owen Sound Times: "The CPSO said in a statement last year that it had received confirmation Kilian provided medical exemptions through Enable Air (enableair.com)."
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Rochagne-Kilian/0308112-110334
Celeste Thirlwell
Psychiatrist. Terms and conditions imposed. Issues were: vaccine exemptions, mask exemption, diagnostic testing exemptions. Must not issue prescriptions for Narcotic Drugs
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Celeste-Jean-Thirlwell/0169386-76629
Jeffrey Matheson
Terms and conditions imposed.
- Was disciplined many times in the past.
- Misinformation: "giving patients information on COVID-19 that was inconsistent with public health and College directives" and "Dr. Matheson will engage in professional education including in respecting CPSO policies, public health guidance, and Ministry of Health directives around COVID-19, understanding how health misinformation spreads, and improving critical appraisal skills. "
- Masking: "wear a surgical mask during all in-person encounters and require his staff to do the same"
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Jeffrey-Rice-Holmes-Matheson/0049647-63625
Christopher Alan Shoemaker
Shoemaker and Trozzi tried to step in and take over Crystal Luchkiw's practice after Luchkiw's license was suspended.
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Shoemaker-Christopher---Alan/0024010-28832
Caroline Anne Turek
Pending hearing.
It is alleged that between approximately 2020 and 2022, Dr. Turek engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct and/or failed to maintain the standard of practice of the profession and/or is incompetent in relation to her communications, including but not limited to communications on social media / online / digital platforms regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues. This includes but is not limited to making misleading, false or inflammatory statements about vaccinations, treatments and public health measures for COVID-19.
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Turek-Caroline-Anne/0048470-62448
Zoltan Peter Rona
In 2022, terms and conditions were imposed on his license. He resigned the same year.
"dishonourable or unprofessional conduct in relation to his communications about the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues."
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Rona-Zoltan---Peter/0025401-30224
Sonja Kustka
Terms and conditions imposed on certificate over masks and failing to co-operate with the CPSO investigation. Her patients retained Rocco Galati as the patients did not want their medical records being given to the CPSO.
Her court case lists suspicions from the CPSO regarding ivermectin/COVID treatment, masks, and an exemption letter:
The information included that Dr. Kustka had provided ivermectin to a patient suffering from COVID-19 without examining the patient. The patient’s daughter stated that this resulted in her mother waiting to seek medical attention and eventually resulted in her death. The Registrar also received information from a Girl Guide leader who raised a concern about Dr. Kustka providing potentially illegitimate mask exemptions for two sisters. The sisters had not previously reported medical conditions when registering with Girl Guides and the sisters did not live near Dr. Kustka’s office, which raised a question as to whether they were her patients. In addition, the exemption letter from Dr. Kustka failed to provide any medical reason for the exemptions
https://doctors.cpso.on.ca/DoctorDetails/Kustka-Sonja-Sophia/0039952-53928
Legal cases
Canadian Frontline Nurses, Choujounian, Nagle, Pitter (Ontario defamation case)
The CFLN nurses sued for defamation over hit pieces that were written on them.
The Anti-SLAPP motion against the plaintiffs was successful, so the plaintiffs were required to pay a substantial portion of the defendants' legal fees. (This decision was made before the 2023 Park Lawn ruling that encourages judges to cap anti-SLAPP costs at $50k.) In the 2023 appeal, the legal fees were reduced to a total of $315K.
While the judge found some potential merit to the plaintiff's case, the judge ultimately dismissed the case with the following conclusion:
In light of the foregoing, I conclude that the Plaintiffs have not shown on a balance of probabilities that they likely have suffered or will suffer harm as a result of the CNA Statement and the TNI Article that is sufficiently serious that the public interest in allowing this proceeding to continue outweighs the deleterious effects on expression and public participation and the public interest in protecting that expression.
The judge noted that the bizarre/surprising litigation strategy of the plaintiffs was a factor in his decision:
The decision to sue the TNI Defendants is particularly surprising given that TNI is a small and regional media organization based on Vancouver Island. There appears to be some merit to the TNI Defendants’ submission that the Plaintiffs have deliberately chosen to ignore similar expressions made by media giants and public figures who are better resourced and able to respond to a lawsuit than the TNI Defendants.
Gill v. Maciver, 2022 ONSC 6169 (Kulvinder Kaur defamation case)
As of 2022, Kaur and Lamba (Ashvinder Kaur Lamba) were ordered to pay costs of $1.1M as the defendants' were successful in their anti-SLAPP motion. See https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1279/2022onsc1279.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAKa2F1ciBzbGFwcAAAAAAB&resultIndex=5
In Bent v. Platnick, Bent arguably had a strong anti-SLAPP case as she was alleging wrongdoing by Platnick. However, Platnick derives substantial income from his reputation as his reputation is critical to his work providing medical opinions. Those medical opinions are key to insurance litigation legal actions. According to the Supreme Court of Canada brief: "Bent said that Dr. Platnick had misrepresented and changed other doctors’ reports to make her clients’ injuries look less serious. This meant the people who were hurt would get fewer insurance benefits." The damage to his reputation could be quite substantial. This weighs heavily against the public interest of not allowing defamation lawsuits to chill speech related to public participation.
In a close 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Platnick. Platnick's defamation case against Bent was allowed to proceed and the anti-SLAPP motion failed. One interpretation is that the (alleged) reputational damage must be very high to get past the anti-SLAPP hurdle.
Galloway v. A.B. is another defamation case where the defendants filed an anti-SLAPP motion. Galloway says that he faced false accusations of sexual misconduct, with some evidence that some of the statements made against him were false. One could argue that Galloway would be more likely to win his defamation case than Platnick and that anti-SLAPP is less likely to apply for his case.
Akbar Khan
He details his multi-year fight against the CPSO at CPSOcrimes.com. The website lists various other doctors who were able to hold onto their license for some time. For many years, he was able to retain his license but he ultimately lost it in 2022.
Khan appealed to the Ontario divisional court, which ruled against him. The court decision implicitly defers to the CPSO in determining what is and isn't the standard of care:
The use of treatments that are not part of generally accepted or “conventional” therapies or the use of “conventional medications” in an unconventional or “off-label” manner is governed by Policy Statement #3-11 issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario entitled “Complementary/Alternative Medicine.”
The CPSO's CAM policy can be found at https://www.cpso.on.ca/en/Physicians/Policies-Guidance/Policies/Complementary-Alternative-Medicine/Advice-to-the-Profession-Complementary-and-Alterna
CANLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2023/2023onsc2096/2023onsc2096.html
Judges: Corbett, Lederer, Charney JJ
'Math is racist' / Ontario Teacher Candidates’ Council v. The Queen
The Ontario government implemented standardized testing for math pedagogy (the teaching of math) and basic math in an effort to improve the math scores of Ontario students. The EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) was tasked with the creation of the test, which was vetted for 'racist' and 'discriminatory' content. Because apparently math (pedagogy) can be racist.
The plaintiffs argued that inequality of outcome is evidence of racism. They did not have to prove that there was racist content in the standardized test that led to unequal/racist outcomes. Some 'racialized' groups faced weaker outcomes while other 'racialized' groups had outcomes similar to Whites. (Yes, the judgement capitalized the word White.)
The plaintiffs won but the case will go to appeal.
Canadian Constitution Foundation video by Christine Van Geyn explaining the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6HsM-3b5SI
CANLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onscdc/doc/2021/2021onsc7386/2021onsc7386.html
Judges: Backhouse and Nishikawa JJ.
Sonja Kustka and her patients versus CPSO (medical privacy, whether the CPSO has a right to investigate)
An Ontario court ruled March 30th that patient medical records of a doctor now under investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) are not private and open to the scrutiny of the medical regulator’s investigators. https://brightlightnews.com/ontario-court-rules-patients-medical-records-not-private-during-doctor-investigations/
Kustka was represented by Slansky. Her patients were represented by Rocco Galati. Galati and Slansky were frequent collaborators pre-COVID. For example, they won a landmark case against the Harper government over the appointment of judges without 10 years of experience (teaching law does not count). Galati and Slansky (Constitutional Rights Centre) received a mere $5,000 for their constitutional law work.
Judges: D.L. Corbett, Nishikawa and O’Brien JJ.
Kilian v. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
Similar to the Sonja Kustka case, the lawyer Paul Slansky (who also represented Kustka), sought to have patients argue that their medical records should not be disclosed to the CPSO. While the judges were different in the Kilian case, the judges also ruled that the CPSO is allowed to seize medical records.
The judges believe that patients have 'a choice' when they must decide between their job and bodily autonomy:
Denying someone an automatic exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine is not the same as forcing them to take the vaccine. Someone who chooses not to take the vaccine may not be able to do certain things in the wider community. However, the decision to take (or not take) the vaccine remains a personal choice.
The judges implicitly assume that the CPSO was acting in good faith and that their views on bodily autonomy (the opposite of 'my body my choice') constitute 'proper' medical care:
What is plain is that the restrictions on Dr. Kilian’s certificate were imposed to protect her patients from harm and, as such, were directed to and consistent with the primary goal of the regulatory regime to ensure proper medical care for all patients.
They also do not believe that the CPSO's action against Kilian affects bodily autonomy, because apparently you have bodily autonomy when no doctor will give you an exemption:
With respect to the Investigation Decision, the Patients fail to raise a serious justiciable issue, because they have no reasonable expectation of privacy against a medical regulator accessing patient records, and there is no interference with bodily autonomy under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, since the CPSO is not “mandating inoculation.” Rather, the CPSO is investigating a member out of concern that she may have committed professional misconduct – in particular, by giving unjustified medical exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccination, thus stepping outside the obligation to provide proper medical care.
"Proper medical care" involves giving the patient 'a choice' between their job and bodily autonomy.
The jduges' decision also have a different interpretation of facts compared to the motion judge regarding whether the actions of the CPSO could be politically motivated:
This is not a case where an administrative proceeding is fatally flawed, or the Court might intervene to prevent disclosure of privileged information. There are no exceptional grounds here that warrant a review of the Investigation Decision at this time. The issues perceived by the motion judge who considered the possible intervention in the application under s. 87 of the Code as possibly being of concern (the idea that the actions of the CPSO were politically motivated, and that the actions of Dr. Kilian in the public statements she made and the exemptions issued over her name and signature were based on research and science) simply do not arise in this case.</blockqute>
Judges: Swinton, Lederer and LeMay JJ
Relevant legislation
Bill 100, Keeping Ontario Open for Business Act - PASSED
This bill was passed following the Ottawa Trucker Convoy. It provides police with expanded powers to target protestors like the ones who blocked the US-Canada border crossing (Ambassador bridge).
https://brightlightnews.com/interview-bill-100-bruce-pardy-law-professor/
Bill 67, Racial Equity in the Education System Act, 2022 - IN LIMBO
Jordan Peterson publicly spoke out against this bill: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/warning-bill-67/
According to Peterson, bill 67 "will make mandatory the subversion of the entire education system in Ontario (K-12 as well as colleges and universities) to the radically leftist doctrines known as critical theory–a thoroughly anti-western ideology, both post-modern and Marxist in its derivation, based on the idea that all our extant institutions are racist, sexist and discriminatory in their essence."
https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-2/bill-67
How to support those persecuted by the colleges
The following spreadsheet lists many of the persecuted doctors and what they're doing now. Many of them have social media accounts or websites where they state how you can support them.