2024-05-24 Defend medical privacy in Nova Scotia and all of Canada. JCCF

Defend medical privacy in Nova Scotia and all of Canada

Your medical privacy is about to become history if a new law is not challenged and defeated.

Nova Scotia’s House of Assembly recently passed Bill 419, giving the Nova Scotia government power to access patients’ individual medical records.

Among other things, Bill 419 empowers the Nova Scotia government to create and maintain an electronic database populated with the personal medical information of Nova Scotians. This is a dangerous law that we must vigorously challenge and defeat before it spreads to the rest of the country.

When politicians and bureaucrats gain access to private medical information, serious harms result. It sets government on the path to potentially totalitarian control over every dimension of citizens’ lives.

Access to peoples’ medical records could be used by governments to create different medical categories and use them to discriminate between citizens.

Apart from opening the door to restrictions on personal freedoms, there is a valid concern about privacy, simply for privacy’s sake.

It’s not anyone’s business – and certainly not the government’s – to know what medical problems or conditions you might have, or what treatments you have received in the past, or will receive in the future. The same holds true for politicians and government officials: they should not be permitted to access your personal medical information – even if they do not abuse or misuse that information.

That’s why the Justice Centre will be challenging this law in court.

Bill 419, now passed into law, opens the door to severe restrictions on personal freedoms.

If a violation of medical privacy were combined with a requirement that citizens use a QR code or other government ID, the state could then exercise direct control over many aspects of our daily lives.

The violation of our medical privacy would result in the loss of our autonomy – the freedom to live our lives as we deem best. Personal autonomy matters. Our vision has always been “a free society where governments uphold human dignity by respecting fundamental rights and freedoms, and where Canadians can realize their potential and fulfil their aspirations”

Will you support our vision for a free Canada?

With its new electronic database, the government could then (for the sake of “safety”) create new regulations to restrict freedom of movement and activity. For example, in order to keep everyone safe, citizens could be forced to swipe their cards to gain access to certain highways, certain cities, certain neighbourhoods, certain stores, etc.

Nova Scotia’s new law could open the door to barring pregnant women from entering a pub or a restaurant that serves alcohol. Special restrictions could be placed on people who drink alcohol, consume cannabis, eat too much junk food, or fail to get enough exercise. People who have not taken an annual flu shot could be banned from airports, train stations, or even public transit.

With health care costs straining the budgets of every Canadian province, the government could also conceivably use the private medical information of individual patients to proactively offer citizens assisted suicide (usually referred to as “Medical Assistance in Dying” or MAID).

Canadians have already seen and experienced firsthand the dangers of government using private individual medical information to control people.

During the pandemic, personal medical data was used to prevent some individuals from playing team sports, watching their own children play team sports, travelling by plane to visit a dying parent, working out at the gym, eating in restaurants, and watching a movie in a theatre.

One might hope that Nova Scotia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons would step up to the plate to defend medical privacy and the doctor-patient relationship. Sadly, no. After initially opposing Bill 419, the College took a 180-degree turn and actually supported this law.

It is, therefore, up to the Justice Centre to fight this fight.

We are a registered charity. We rely entirely on the generosity of freedom-loving Canadians to fund a team of lawyers across Canada who fight for your rights and freedoms every day.

We are not influenced by politicians. We do not ask for or accept any government funding.

If you want to live in a country that respects medical privacy, where Canadians can confide in their doctors and know that their personal medical information will not be disclosed to anyone, then please help us defend your rights and freedoms by donating to the Justice Centre.

Yours sincerely,

John Carpay, B.A., LL.B.
President
Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

Cheques can be mailed to:

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
#253, 7620 Elbow Drive SW
Calgary, Alberta, T2V 1K2