Council of Canadians health care campaigner Adrienne Silnicki writes, “Since 1996, Dr. Brian Day has been running the private Cambie Surgical Centre in Vancouver (and) illegally charging patients and the province. Now he’s taking the BC government to court.”
She highlights, “In 2008 the province conducted an audit on the Cambie Centre and found that in just 30 days the clinic made $500,000 from illegal billings (charging patients privately for medically necessary services) and $66,000 in double billing (charging the patient privately and charging tax payers through medicare for the same procedure)! Dr. Day has confessed to conducting this illegal behaviour and the province sought an injunction to prevent Day from continuing his illegal billing.”
“So now Day is taking the BC government to court over Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedom. Despite the fact that private clinics create longer wait times for Canadians, Dr. Day is arguing that by allowing him to serve the healthy and wealthy – and continue to rip off Canadian taxpayers by charging tax payers and his patients for the same service – Canada is infringing on a person’s security, right to life and liberty.”
Dr. Day is being represented by the law firm Heenan Blaikie and the challenge could go as far as the Supreme Court of Canada. The Canadian Constitution Foundation, a registered charity, is collecting donations for this litigation, as it is for a similar case in Ontario.
To read Silnicki’s commentary ‘Rights to Security of Person Only for the 1%’, please see http://canadians.org/blog/?p=19507.
