Update Canada 09-05-22
Today, I’m going to get a little bit more specific with you on the work that we’re doing in the different provinces around Canada. As I know, I’ve been doing very high level, but you’re going to want to pay attention to today’s update as I want to get a bit more specific and share with you exactly what’s going on. Lots of information for you.
Good morning, Canadian chiropractors and allied health professionals. My name is Bharon Hoag, I am the Executive Director of the Chiropractic Defense Council coming to you today, Monday, September 5th, 2022, for your weekly update. I’m going to get a little detailed because I want to be a bit more specific.
Some of you have sent me emails saying, “Man, we’d like to know a little bit more specifically what you’re talking about when you say that you’re going after the colleges and things of that nature.” And so, I apologize, I don’t mean to be vague, I just try to get as much information as I can in a shorter period of time. But today’s might be a little longer because I want to be very detailed with you.
We’ve told you a lot in British Columbia what we’ve been doing, so I’ll hit there and I’ll just skim over that. I did meet with our attorney this past week that is dealing with the X-ray issue. We are really digging into this, and we feel that we are very prepared to be able to go to this judicial review and make it very apparent that the college did not do its due process when making this X-ray rule.
Our attorney is a hundred percent behind us on this. Feels that it was clear that they set themselves up for success, only looking at certain particular data sets that would give them the outcome they wanted, not doing their job of looking at overall data. We’re very confident we’re going to get this X-ray thing changed, at the very least make the college re-investigate this process and do it with a bit more appropriate manner of looking at peer review data and not just cherry-picking to tell the story that they want to tell. Very excited about that.
We’re also having success going after the college as it relates to their normal investigation process, making sure that they’re following appropriate protocols, and defending the ruling that has already happened that told the college they need to do a better job at that. Lots of stuff going on in British Columbia.
In Ontario, specifically, we have taken on a case. This particular case is an issue of a chiropractor that had a prepayment plan with a patient, and long story short, he made it right with a patient. The patient was fine. The patient did file a complaint with the college.
The provider did not do anything wrong in the preparation of the prepayment plan. Made it right with the patient. The patient’s fine now, but the college decided to continue to go after this individual. Not only did they continue to go after him, but they’re wanting to shut them down for six months and have him pay 30 grand. And it’s just ridiculous what’s going on there.
We’re really throwing the book at this to really make sure that the college understands that they cannot just be doing this. There is no complaint. There is no issue here. The patient is fine. The situation was resolved.
And for them to continue to push on this and to have such an egregious fine is unacceptable. We are going after that full throttle, and we are going to make sure the college is held accountable for whenever they create their sentencing or when they come up with a compromise… I’m forgetting the word at the moment. You know what I’m talking about. But whenever they come up to terms and they issue any type of penalty or punishment, we want to make sure that it’s appropriate and fair, and that there’s been due diligence done in that process.
In Alberta specifically, as well as BC, there are some existing rules within the colleges that we don’t feel are supported by what happens around the rest of the world. Even in Canada, it’s not peer-reviewed. Things like the way that you can market prepay, things of those natures that you cannot do those things in those provinces, restricting your ability to use things like the immune system, or that the care provides a better quality of life—very, very restrictive and stringent thing. We’re building really a plan to be able to execute in those provinces to be able to get those rules changed so that we open up the platform a little bit more for you guys to be able, to tell the truth about Chiropractic.
That’s the work that we’re doing in Canada. It’s very isolated to individual cases that we feel put us in a position to hold the colleges accountable for their behavior. And then also looking at current infrastructures where we need to maybe play a little bit more of a political side of things to change these rules and regulations, to allow you guys to be able to tell the story of Chiropractic. Hopefully, that’s a little bit more detailed for you. It is absolutely vital that we continue to grow our impact, our representation, our resources because all of these battles take a considerable amount of money.
They’re long plays, none of them happen overnight, but we’re going to take them on because it’s what’s best for the profession and we need your help. I’m asking you to continue to share this with your colleagues, get more people connected to us, and allow us to get to that 1000 people in Canada. As I stated, we’re right around 560 right now, contributors, and I really want to get to that 1000 mark.
Help me if you can. I’m going to be doing a couple of Zoom calls around the country and trying to get people to understand how proactive we’re being and how this is in the best interest of everybody involved. We’re an agnostic organization. I’m not looking to pick sides. I’m not looking to poke fights, but I do want to create an environment that allows us to appropriately tell the story of Chiropractic, whatever story that is for you.
I mean whether you’re mechanistic, or vitalistic, or whatever you choose to do, I’m not here to push an agenda or a thought process. What we have to do is stand up for our profession, create an environment that allows us to communicate that message, and that’s exactly what the Defense Council is doing in Canada.
Hopefully, that was a little bit more specific for you on exactly the work that we’re doing. And more work keeps coming to us. As people hear about us, we get more and more contact of people asking us, can we help with this or that or the other thing. And we love that.
We want to be a resource for you guys in your country. Hopefully, that helps. We love you. We appreciate you.
I’ll continue to update you as things move forward, but just know, never stop loving and serving, never stop telling the story, and remember together, we’re far stronger than we are individually. We love you. We appreciate you. Have an incredible week. God bless you. (This is a computer-generated transcript. Please excuse any errors.)
