PTBC banner       ProudToBeCanadian

Your right.

** HELP HAITI **
World Vision


The latest from our COLUMNIST SECTION:

Click here to see more of our columns or use the drop-down menu atop this stack)



PTBC PUSH-BACK

Free-Market Capitalist Consumer Information:
These companies choose to advertise on the
socialism-reliant CBC:
(Links lead to mailing addresses)
• AIG (insur)
• Air Canada
• AOL Travel
• Best Western
• Canada Protection Plan
• Canada Revenue Agency (!)
• Canadian Tire Fin Serv
• Chip Home Income Plan
• CIBC
• Cold FX
• Desjardins (insurance)
• Directbuy, Inc
• Edward Jones
• General Motors
• Grand and Toy
• Grey Power (insurance)
• H&R Block
• Hilton Hotels
• iContact email marketing
• Infinity (cars)
• Koodoo mobile
• Lens Crafters
• Monster.ca
• National Post
• Neutrogena
• Nutrisystem
• Quicktax
• RBC (Royal bank)
• Rogers Cable
• ScotiaBank
• Shaw Cable
• Texas Travel
• The Co-operators (ins)
• Tim Hortons
• Travelodge
• Vonage
• WeightWatchers
• Westjet
• Working.com
• Zip.ca

Please read more here.


PTBC Columnist Team

Columnists -- with bite! We feature conservative-friendly writers from Canada and the U.S. who help clarify the difference between liberals and conservatives. All have personally agreed to be a part of our team here at PTBC.

Rory Leishman

Rory Leishman

  posted on Saturday, September 27, 2008
Bio/Email | Rory Leishman Archives | Printer-Friendly Version

Canadian doctors beware: “human rights” commissions dicatate your morals

Canadian physicians who uphold the natural family and the sanctity of all human life should beware: According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, they have no legal or constitutional right to go on practising medicine in accordance with their moral and religious beliefs.

In a submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) on Feb. 14, the Ontario Human Rights Commission specifically warned that under the Ontario Human Rights Code: “A physician’s denial of services or refusal to provide a woman with information relating to contraception or abortion, for example, would be discriminatory based on sex, as only women can become pregnant.” And that’s not all: The Commission also served notice that “the Code protections relating to sex also include gender identity and expression.”

In June, the CPSO passed along this warning to its membership. In a draft statement on “Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code,” the agency stated: “Physicians should be aware that decisions to restrict medical services … based on moral or religious belief may contravene the Code, and/or constitute professional misconduct.”

The Ontario Medical Association took strong issue with this warning, alleging that it “does not adequately inform physicians that their right to freedom of religion is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

The CPSO disagrees. In the final version of the policy on the Ontario Human Rights Code issued on Sept. 19, the Council of the CPSO still warns: “A physician who refuses to provide a service … on the basis of a prohibited ground such as sex or sexual orientation may be acting contrary to the Code, even if the refusal is based on the physician’s moral or religious belief.”

To illustrate the all-encompassing scope of the suppression of the conscience rights of physicians in the Ontario Human Rights Code, the CPSO states: “A physician who is opposed to same sex procreation for religious reasons and therefore refuses to refer a homosexual couple for fertility treatment may be in breach of the Code.”

The CPSO is right. It is naïve of the leaders of the OMA or anyone else to suppose that the rights of physicians to practise medicine in accordance with their moral and religious beliefs are protected by the Charter. 

In a series of rulings, judicial activists on the Supreme Court of Canada have eviscerated the purported guarantees in Section 2 of the Charter of “a) freedom of conscience and religion” and “b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.”  In the advisory submission to the CPSO, the Ontario Human Rights Commission pointed out: “The Supreme Court of Canada recognized in the Trinity Western decision that providers of public services are expected to essentially ‘check their personal views at the door” when providing their services.”

At issue in Trinity Western was a decision by the British Columbia College of Teachers not to certify a teaching course at Trinity Western University on the ground that the Evangelical Protestant institution requires students to affirm that same-sex sexual relations are sinful. In overturning this ruling, Canada’s top court ordained: “The freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them.” The Court added: “Acting on those beliefs, however, is a very different matter…. Discriminatory conduct by a public school teacher when on duty should always be subject to disciplinary proceedings.”

The Ontario Human Rights Commission takes the view that provincial human rights codes apply no less to physicians than to public school teachers. Thus, under the laws and the Constitution of Canada, an obstetrician has a right to believe that abortion is a sin that can never be justified, but he has no right to act on that belief by refusing to perform an abortion on demand.

That’s simply outrageous. What more graphic illustration could we have of the urgent need for Parliament and the provincial legislatures to revive genuine freedom under law in Canada, by eliminating all the coercive powers they improvidently conferred upon the country’s totalitarian human rights tribunals.

Nice line, eh

Rory Leishman's graphic

Rory Leishman is an award-winning former full-time editorial writer and columnist at the London Free Press and has taught courses at the University of Western Ontario on Canadian federalism, Quebec politics and introductory political theory.  Buy his book “Against Judicial Activism - The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada through Amazon.ca.


Posted on 09/27/08 at 07:55 AM
• If you think this site is of no value, then don't pay anything for it, and it will fade into the sunset. That's capitalism at work.
• Email this article to a Friend Spread the word! Email this to a friend | • Printer-Friendly | • Permalink
• Category: Rory Leishman +
ASK Favicon Blogosphere News Favicon del.icio.us Favicon Digg Favicon Facebook Favicon Fark Favicon Google Favicon LinkedIn Favicon Live Favicon Netscape Favicon NewsVine Favicon Reddit Favicon Slashdot Favicon StumbleUpon Favicon Technorati Favicon TwitThis Favicon Upnews Favicon Wikio Favicon YahooMyWeb Favicon

Page 1 of 1 pages