After reading the op-ed by doctors Rupinder Brar and Richard Klasa, I felt a sense of unease — not because of the threat to Canada’s medicare system, but because of a threat to parliamentary democracy as we know it.
Sir Winston Churchill felt that no one should pretend that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Under this system, politicians are elected to maintain order in society. New laws are contemplated, debated in Parliament three times, reviewed by a House of Peers and then passed into law — only if Parliament agrees by a division.
If a citizen does not like the law, there are many options open. The simplest and most basic is to vote the politician out of office. Other options are to seek an audience with the politician or correspond by letter, email, Twitter — and use this option to express concern, or concurrence, or objection to the law.
What is happening in Vancouver threatens to overturn the very basic premise of Canada’s Medicare system by unelected members of the judiciary.
It is not possible — in fact it is against the law — to contact a judge with a view to trying to persuade him or her to leave the Canada Health Act as it is. This judge cannot be voted out of office. Nor can he or she be influenced in any way outside the courtroom.
Regardless of the argument concerning the fiscal restraints on physicians working within the Medicare system, I feel it would be a tragedy if the Canada Health Act — which was conceived in 1962 by Tommy Douglas, and has been modified, but mostly supported for nearly 60 years, by provincial and federal governments left, right and centre — was castrated.
Another measure that has actually been negated in British Columbia: The provincial government’s attempt to simplify auto insurance, whilst attempting to control the escalating costs of this program.
I did not have to look far to find yet another example — where a Quebec municipal government has banned horse-drawn calèches in deference to the animal-rights movement. This is also being challenged in the courts.
The problem as I see it is that the judicial system is autonomous. Any law introduced to restrict the power of the courts would almost certainly be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada to be judged by, yes, lawyers and judges.
Dr. Chris Pengilly is a retired family physician.
