The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) has dropped charges of professional misconduct against Dr. Michal Princ for granting Covid vaccine exemptions to his patients.
The five-day disciplinary hearing scheduled to start on March 8 has been cancelled. On Jan. 10, the CPSA withdrew its charges against Dr. Princ because Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s Sept. 18, 2021, health order was likely invalid, based on the 2023 Alberta Court of King’s Bench ruling in Ingram v. Alberta.
“Our client was ethically motivated by the sacrosanct and longstanding principle of ‘do no harm,” said lawyer Andre Memauri, co-counsel for Dr. Princ.
“We are pleased the CPSA has withdrawn charges, although we wish the charges had been withdrawn to protect professional independence, not based on the Ingram ruling.The relationship of trust between each physician and his or her patients must be brought back to the forefront of medical practice.”
On April 5, 2023, Dr. Princ was accused of failing to follow vaccine exemption requirements that were imposed on medical doctors by the CPSA, Alberta Health Services and Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.
Dr. Princ is a family medicine physician with 49 years of experience. He received his medical degree in 1975 while living in his native Czechoslovakia, then under communist rule. He left his homeland and began his medical practice in Canada in 1989.
In the Ingram v. Alberta trial, Dr. Hinshaw had testified that the health orders violated Charter rights and freedoms were effectively issued by the provincial cabinet and not by her. Court of King’s Bench Justice Barbara Romaine found this to be contrary to the Public Health Act and ruled that health orders must come from the Chief Medical Officer of Health in order to be valid.
After the court released its ruling in Ingram, the Justice Centre submitted a legislative proposal to the Alberta government to amend the Public Health Act so that it would align with the constitutional principle of democratic accountability. Alberta’s Minister of Justice tabled a Bill in November 2023 that would, consistent with Justice Centre recommendations, put public health decision-making authority in the hands of elected officials rather than leaving unaccountable health officials with near-absolute power.
The Legislative Assembly has since changed the Public Health Act to require that all public health orders be issued by cabinet, and not by the Chief Medical Officer of Health, in an attempt to ensure democratic oversight and accountability as required by Canada’s Constitution.
The requirements imposed on doctors by the CPSA, AHS and the Chief Medical Officer of Health, while sometimes described as mere “guidance,” were strict and inflexible. For example, it wasn’t clear that any condition would entitle a patient to an exemption, and this uncertainty was reflected in the “guidance” provided to medical doctors.
“This mandatory ‘Guidance for physicians’ that was imposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta resulted in an unknown number of Albertans getting pressured, coerced or manipulated into receiving an injection that they did not consent to voluntarily,” said John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre.
“One thing we found most alarming about all of this guidance was the degree to which the basic medical ethical principle of informed consent was simply ignored,” said Glenn Blackett, co-counsel for Dr. Princ.
“How did health professionals in Alberta recommending or administering vaccines obtain informed consent where patients were subject to the coercive pressure of vaccine mandates? The CPSA told doctors how to participate in and, effectively, help enforce the vaccine mandate program, which consisted of rejecting all or ‘virtually’ all exemption requests. But it seems the CPSA entirely failed to grapple with the resulting ethical dilemmas.”
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