The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) said it's dismayed by the Supreme Court refusing leave in Cambie Surgeries v. Attorney General..“The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to refuse leave in the Cambie matter is a shocking dereliction of the court’s duty to provide legal clarity across the country,” said CCF Executive Director Joanna Baron in a press release..“The court is to hear cases that raise legal issues of national importance, and given the growing crisis of wait times across Canada as well as the complex and contradictory state of the law, it is inexplicable and stunning it elected not to hear this challenge.” .The Supreme Court refused to hear a constitutional challenge against the ban on private healthcare Monday, bringing a British Columbia surgeon’s 14-year court battle to an end..READ MORE: Supreme Court of Canada refuses BC surgeon's private healthcare challenge.Cambie Surgery Centre medical director Dr. Brian Day and five patients who suffered long waits in the public healthcare system launched the legal challenge in 2009. Day and the patients said BC’s Medicare Protection Act was unconstitutional to bar doctors from billing provincial governments for services given in the public system while earning money from private clinics..“I would describe it as cowardly because they basically succumbed to political interference,” said Day.. Cambie Surgeries 2The Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver pictured in July. Until the clinic lost an ongoing court battle with the provincial government earlier this year, it was one of the relatively few Canadian privately owned clinics offering hip and knee replacements. It now markets itself as a sports injuries centre. .A majority of Supreme Court justices determined in 2005 Quebec’s ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional. The majority said the ban was “not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services and that life, liberty, and security of the person must prevail.”.The release said there remains massive inequalities between federal public servants such as judges — who are entitled to federal health insurance and are able to be treated in private healthcare facilities — and average people..The CCF thanked Day for his leadership, as he's dedicated 14 years of his life to improving the healthcare system for all Canadians. It is considering other avenues of litigation to continue his fight for patient choice..Baron concluded by saying it “remains unclear why the same reasoning ought not to apply in the rest of Canada under the Charter’s guarantee of life, liberty, and security of the person.”.“It is lamentable the Supreme Court declined to resolve these ambiguities, which directly affect every Canadian,” she said..Two-fifths of Canadians are public health purists who see no place for privatization, according to a February poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute..READ MORE: Poll finds two-in-five Canadians opposed to private healthcare.The poll said three-tenths of Canadians are private healthcare proponents. Private healthcare proponents described increasing privatization as a necessary evolution and are open to seeing hybrid healthcare options from countries such as Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom brought to their own provinces..It said one-third are curious but hesitant. Curious but hesitant finds value in private healthcare concepts, but these people are concerned about how far to go.
