A panel of doctors at a conference in BC said the province’s Bill 36 threatens health care professionals and patients and could be emulated by other provinces..Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations Act, was passed Nov. 24, 2022, but has not been proclaimed. The NDP government invoked closure at clause 233, leaving most of the 645 clauses unread and not exposed to scrutiny..Whereas college boards that regulated professions had half the appointees made by the government and half by members of the profession, Bill 36 puts the appointment power solely in the government hands. The number of colleges would be reduced from 15 down to six..The bill allows a health professional to be fined up to $200,000 or jailed up to six months if they knowingly provide “false or misleading information to a person who is exercising a power or performing a duty under this act, or a person acting under the order or direction of that person.” .The fine is $500,000 if the doctor has incorporated his or her practice..The bill also allows a patient’s private medical records to be seized and copied by ruling bodies and for the government to mandate medical interventions..Dr. William Makis, an Edmonton doctor who grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, says the bill encourages the snitch culture common to totalitarian regimes..“Now you can file anonymous complaints against doctors. Doctors can have their licenses suspended before a complaint has been investigated, no due process, just straight up suspension. There's also a portion of the bill where doctors and nurses are strongly encouraged to report other doctors and other nurses for misinformation,” Makis said..“This leads straight to communism … [pitting] neighbors against each other. If you ratted out your neighbor, saying, ‘Hey, my neighbor listens to Radio Free Europe’ or ‘My neighbor has a few dollars saved stashed away somewhere,’ the secret police would come in the middle of the night, and then take that person away, put them in prison or put them in the gulags.”.BC Conservative leader John Rustad created a petition against the bill which garnered 17,500 signatures. Makis believes the current government is dug in, but lobbying the colleges might make a difference..“The BC NDP will not [change]. They're going all in and they know the damage it will do to the healthcare system; they don't care,” Makis said..“It's about keeping doctors and other health care professionals in line because they want to push other mRNA products on the rest of the population.”.Dr. Stephen Malthouse provided a “doctor package” for conference attendees. The package informs health care professionals and their patients about the bill and facilitate the lobbying of decision makers. It includes a poster, postcards for patients to send to their MLA, and postcards for health care providers to send to their medical colleges..Malthouse practised medicine on Denman Island until his medical license was suspended in March 2022 for providing patients with mask and vaccine exemptions that allegedly contained false statements. He said change doesn’t come without suffering and a doctor shortage made worse by the bill would prompt a backlash..“There's never really been a change without suffering. There will come a point where the suffering gets to the level where people will start to wake up, because they'll have no other choice … [and] recognize their house is on fire,” he said..“We need to get to more mainstream media. And some people just have to keep asking questions to those media providers so they realize really what this is all about. And at least the media isn't quite as bought by the provincial government as it is with the federal government controls.”.Dr. Anna Kindy, a general practitioner from Campbell River, BC, said the legislation will be hard to repeal if it is ever implemented..“Bill 36 isn't about health. It's about politics and control. And once the politicians have a power, they will never give it back,” she said..Ontario physician Arney Lange expressed concerns the BC approach will be adopted elsewhere, including his province. He adapted an old poem to summarize the need to be vocal..“First, they came for the trucker and you did not speak out, because you were not a trucker. Then they came for the doctor, and you did not speak out, because you're not a doctor. Then they came for the lawyer. Now, you do not speak out, because you're not a lawyer.".“Then this empowers the totalitarian so we cannot speak out. So the one thing to do here is speak out, because there'll be no one else to speak for you.”
