Nova Scotia Health Coalition Applauds BC Supreme Court Ruling

The Nova Scotia Health Coalition is applauding the BC Supreme Court’s ruling today which thoroughly rejected a decade-long legal attack on public health care in Canada.

The case (Cambie Surgeries Corporation v British Columbia) concerned the constitutionality of provisions in British Columbia’s Protection of Medicare Act which ban three practices: double billing patients and the provincial government for the same service, private insurance which allows clients to buy plans which would jump them to the front of the line at private clinics, and dual practice where the same doctor works in both the public system and a parallel or-profit system.

Justice Steeves ruled that there is no constitutional right to any of these three practices. The judge also accepted expert opinion that private, for-profit care increases wait times in the public system and poses an existential threat to universal, single-tier health care.

This is a clear repudiation of a constitutional right to profit off of the suffering and illness of others and a decisive legal victory for public, universal health care in Canada. 

Nova Scotia passed legislation similar to BC’s Protection of Medicare Act in 2012. Bill 144 (The Insured Services Act) passed the legislative assembly in 2012 with the support of all three political parties but was never proclaimed and as a result has never come into effect.

To learn more about the Cambie Case visit:

The coalition of intervenors - http://www.savemedicare.ca/

The BC Health Coalition - https://www.bchealthcoalition.ca/what-you-can-do/protect-medicare/save-medicare-resources

Canadian Doctors for Medicare - https://www.canadiandoctorsformedicare.ca/cambie