COVID-19 may have conferred a saintlike halo on some doctors, but as far as the B.C. government is concerned too many remain greedy, unethical and ready to ablate part of Canada’s soul.
Lawyers for the province told the B.C. Court of Appeal those physicians exaggerate waiting times, manipulate wait-lists and want to provide private necessary health services that would destroy the country’s celebrated egalitarian public system.
Both the B.C. and federal governments asserted the future of medicare depended on the high bench upholding a 2020 B.C. Supreme Court decision endorsing provisions in the Medical Protection Act restricting access to private care even though patients in lengthy surgical queues may be suffering.
They agreed the impugned provisions suppressed a parallel private market, made it uneconomical for doctors to leave the public sector and erected barriers to the provision of private necessary health services.
