(L) Michael Alexander, attorney, Photo: YouTube.com (C) Dr Mark Trozzi, Photo: torontocaribbean.com (R) Dr Crystal Luchkiw, Photo: barrietoday.com
by Mary W Maxwell, LLB
Dr Trozzi is a physician in Canada who opposes what he sees (and what I see) as the Covid swindle. He does not use that word (and I don’t either) but it’s a quick way to say that he is a dissident. He runs a website, drtrozzi.org, that delivers good information.
Recently, he reported on a young female doctor who has lost her medical license for having issued medical exemptions from the Covid vaccine. It is an uncomplicated case, and shows the procedure for disbarring a doctor, at least in one Canadian province, Ontario. I am including it here in my series of articles about Dr Russell Pridgeon in Australia, and his upcoming criminal trial, as it allows us to discuss medical licensing as such.
Worldwide, members of the public were allowed to link into a zoom hearing of the Dr Luchkiw case today, 19 May, 2023. Some restrictions were posted, such as “The taking of screenshots is an offense that carries a heavy fine.” You can be sure I kept my dear hand off the screenshot button.” However, I can at least report this much:
Michael Alexander, attorney for Dr Luchkiw, defended her and also made the statement that her dismissal meant that 1700 patients, some bound for hospice, lost their doctor suddenly, to their disadvantage.
An attorney for the College, countered by saying that such statements were not in evidence, they were mere assertions and that the members of the Tribunal should consider only the evidence. She also cited the 2008 ruling in the McDougall case that “balance of probabilities” is not a sliding scale of 51 or 71 or 65 percent, and that Luchkiw’s case should be decided on balance of probabilities.
At the end of the hearing, which lasted about 2.5 hours, the members of the College voted to reserve their decision. This article by me is not a plea that Dr Luchkiw’s license be reinstated. It is a suggestion that we think critically about the role played by the College. Did the legislature really mean to let a small, unaccountable band of persons decide what the standards of medical practice should be? And might there be anything sinister in the way the tribunal is set up?
The relevant law is the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991. Its Schedule 2 provides a Health Professions Procedural Code. It established a Discipline Committee known as “The Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal.” On its website, the Tribunal states:
Mission
“To hear and decide allegations of physician misconduct and incompetence with independence and fairness, making just decisions in the public interest.”
If you did not read Part 8 of this series, “Everybody Knows” (which means Everybody knows the government supports the child-stealing racket), you may wish to do so now. Dr Pridgeon found, to his chagrin, that if the Medical Council of New South Wales stripped him of his medical license unlawfully, they’d face no repercussions. I cannot claim that the Ontario tribunal can similarly get away with murder (I’m exaggerating — in the instance of Dr Luchkiw, no one has murdered anyone, so far). But I am saying, let’s think about any governmental role regarding doctors.
I now quote some excerpts from the aforementioned Procedural Code:
Duty of College
2.1 It is the duty of the College to work in consultation with the Minister to ensure, as a matter of public interest, that the people of Ontario have access to adequate numbers of qualified, skilled and competent regulated health professionals. [Seems reasonable to me]
3 (1) The College has the following objects:
- To regulate the practice of the profession and to govern the members in accordance with the health profession Act, this Code and theRegulated Health Professions Act, 1991 and the regulations and by-laws. [Kind of a lot!]
- To develop, establish and maintain standards of qualification for persons to be issued certificates of registration. [Who gets to be a doctor]
- To develop, establish and maintain programs and standards of practice to assure the quality of the practice of the profession. [What?]
- To develop, establish and maintain standards of knowledge and skill and programs to promote continuing evaluation, competence and improvement among the members. [This probably means curriculum and continuing ed]
4.1 To develop, in collaboration and consultation with other Colleges, standards of knowledge, skill and judgment relating to the performance of controlled acts …to enhance interprofessional collaboration, [E.g., a doctor is not a dentist and should therefor stay out of the mouth]
- To develop, establish and maintain standards of professional ethics for the members. [Ethics? How about an ethic against genocide.] …
- To develop, establish, and maintain standards and programs to promote the ability of members to respond to changes in practice environments, advances in technology and other emerging issues. [A good doc will buy some techie stuff]
- Any other objects relating to human health care that the Council considers desirable. [Way, way too broad, that.]
Duty
(2) In carrying out its objects, the College has a duty to serve and protect the public interest. [Probably genocide would not be considered in the public interest, although you never know, do you?]
Council
4 The College shall have a Council that shall be its board of directors and that shall manage and administer its affairs. {Fine, but in NSW that meant Do what you like.]
Meetings
7 (1) The meetings of the Council shall be open to the public and reasonable notice shall be given to the members of the College, to the Minister, and to the public.
Exclusion of public
(2) Despite subsection (1), the Council may exclude the public from any meeting or part of a meeting if it is satisfied that,
(a) matters involving public security may be disclosed;
(b) financial or personal or other matters may be disclosed of such a nature that the harm created by the disclosure would outweigh the desirability of adhering to the principle that meetings be open to the public; [is that weighting appealable?]
(c) a person involved in a criminal proceeding or civil suit or proceeding may be prejudiced; ….
Remuneration and expenses
8 Council members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council shall be paid, by the Minister, the expenses and remuneration the Lieutenant Governor in Council determines. [Totally discretionary]
Employees
9 (1) The Council may employ persons it considers advisable. [Recall the pedo in NSW?]
Committees
10 (1) The College shall have the following committees:
- Executive Committee.
- Registration Committee.
- Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee.
- Discipline Committee.
- Fitness to Practise Committee.
- Quality Assurance Committee.
- Patient Relations Committee.
Appointment
(2) The Council shall appoint the members of the committees. [Five? a hundred?]
(3) The composition of the committees shall be in accordance with the by-laws.
Annual reports
11 (1) Each committee named in subsection 10 (1) shall monitor and evaluate their processes and outcomes and shall annually submit a report of its activities to the Council in a form acceptable to the Council. [Back of a paper napkin OK]
Article at Barrietoday.com
A 20 January 2023 article by Marg Bruineman, in Ontario, reports the first attempt by Luchkiw, and three others, to prevent disciplinary action against them. Remember we are talking about Canada here, the land of breaking the windows of the convoy trucks in the snow, and the land of actual statutes forbidding free speech. I quote barrietoday.com:
“Dr. Crystal Luchkiw, a Barrie family doctor, was suspended from practising medicine last March …, Dr. Patrick Phillips was suspended in May and Dr. Mark Trozzi in December [2022] for similar approaches.
“Trozzi, a Bancroft doctor, is accused of making misleading, incorrect or inflammatory statements [my substitution: correct, vital, and ethical statements], and about vaccinations, treatments and public health measures concerning COVID-19 through his email and online communications about the pandemic.
“Luchkiw is accused of committing professional misconduct by failing to co-operate with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario investigation into her infection-control practices … and issuance of vaccine exemptions.
“Phillips, working in Englehart, is also accused of disclosing information from an investigation, failing to co-operate with the college, and engaging in disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct in different aspects of his treatment of patients and public health reporting. [Good heavens]
“In a motion to the tribunal, the doctors [argued] that the COVID-19 direction issued by their college … impedes the discussion for informed consent of patients to the use of precautionary medications and limits their freedom of expression.
“Toronto lawyer Michael Alexander argued that the prosecutions for breaching COVID-19 protocol are unlawful and that the regulatory body doesn’t have the authority to investigate, describing the investigations as overbroad “fishing expeditions.” In its decision released [in January 2021], the tribunal dismissed suggestions of wrongdoing by the college.
“There is in fact no evidence that anything improper took place during the investigations,” the five-member panel concluded in the written decision.
“Attorney Alexander said ‘Furthermore, the panel also ignored our submission that the college had failed to establish that the doctors had violated a standard of practice’.”
It should also be mentioned that in October 2021 Dr Luchkiw had to resign her privileges at Royal Hospital since she refused to be vaccinated. I don’t know if the hospital made that decision or whether parliament issued a statewide order. In the US, President Biden ordered all federal employees to be vaccinated, do you remember that? Darned if I know where he got the authority for that.
In August 2020, I filed Maxwell v Secretary of Defense, in federal district court, protesting any forthcoming mandatory vax. My intention was to illuminate the 1905 Jacobsen case, which is often said to be the precedent for forcible vaccination. Not true. Mr Jacobsen had to pay a fine for not getting vaccinated but he walked away unvaxxed. I wrote:
“The ruling in Jacobson v Massachusetts (1905) is often cited as the precedent on vaccination mandates. Now 116 years old, that ruling is out of date and needs to be overturned. Much has happened in science to cast doubt on both the efficacy of vaccines and the notion that the unvaccinated person can harm the vaccinated. While it is true that Jacobson was about states’ rights, it is widely misinterpreted to mean that the Fourth Amendment must bend to a public health emergency. The more appropriate ruling is that of Home Builders v Blaisdell (1931) in which the Court said: ‘Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power…. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power … were not altered by emergency’.”
My case was dismissed faster than you can say “Home Builders v Blaisdell.”
Russell Pridgeon’s Medical Crime?
To be clear, the Medical Council of New South Wales was never trying to say that Dr Pridgeon did something wrong in his medical practice. They did not tell him he shouldn’t put plaster casts on sprained ankles, or prescribe birth control pills, or fail to prescribe birth control pills, or whatever. Rather, as part of a planned drama, all aimed at discrediting him for protecting children, or — he says — for starting the Australian Anti-Paedophile Party, they seized his license.
The so-called reason for this was… heck, I forget. Let me consult Russell’s book again. He wrote:
“I wrote letters to my patients and the local doctors to counter the AFP narrative that I was a “Child Stealer” and to explain why I had done what I did. I had a very positive response from my patients. Only one doctor replied to my letter…. the Medical Insurers (MIPS) refused to support me, saying the prosecution was unrelated to medical practice.
“On Tuesday 23rd October 2018, the Medical Council contacted me and gave me two and a half business days to reply, then they suspended my license to practice — at midday on Monday 29 October 2018. They would have received my reply on Sunday, and expecting that they do not work on Sundays, it means that they took the few hours between start of business on Monday, read my extensive submissions( which included large documents from Professor Freda Briggs, describing the abuse and also the misfeasance of the Townsville Police, discussed the complaint, came to a determination, wrote out the reply, and faxed it by midday!”
Health Practitioner Regulation National Law NSW 2009 does not allow the Medical Council to suspend a doctor’s registration on the basis of allegations or charges alone — only on court findings of guilt. But it can circumvent that by using sec 150 of the National Law, where there is urgency for reasons of Public Safety and Public Interest. By misusing emergency powers when there is no emergency, Pridgeon was suspended 4 years after the offending act (the removal of kids in danger). Russell says:
“They acted against me for matters that had nothing to do with professional misconduct, which were the only actions that they were empowered to examine. Rather, they determined that my actions in trying to protect vulnerable women and children placed the public at risk, and was against the “public interest”. It is always difficult for ordinary people to conceive of this level of evil, but it is normal behaviour within Australian bureaucracies.
“Please don’t tire of my repeating: Everybody knew about the abuse of these children and nobody did anything. They know they are above the law. They do not have a Code of Conduct, they do not have the normal statutory and regulatory obligations in law, that would enable them to be held to account in such a case as my own.”
The good news is that the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales reversed the Tribunal’s decision in 2021 and restored Pridgeon’s license. Technically that does not mean that the Brisbane District Court will have to dismiss his prosecution. The charges against him in Queensland are … heck, I forget. Like how am I supposed to remember crimes that aren’t crimes?
There’s no there, there. Is there?
we all know the colleges and associations have been penetrated.
Really, Russell has a license now? , that’s strange, a gag order and walk ?. Take it go for another day, we trust you
With everything inverted, guess the good guys are now the perverted and visa versa.
We have faith, the enemy knows they are destined to fail.
Sure the good doctor is respected by most in this great nation inhabited by people from all lands.
This issue is actually a God-send in disguise
Because it’s a wake-up call re the fact that licensing in every shape & form is principally skewed
To elucidate, the Rule of Law decrees that everything is allowed unless specifically prohibited: licensing, no matter how sagacious it might appear, reverses that process
And we all know who the author of reversals is (or should do)
Licensing does nothing but harbour incompetence/political sycophancy:
If medical and legal consultants were free to practice on their word-of-mouth merits the entire world system would collapse
” ‘License’ means permission. The state gives you permission to do something. That also means the state can refuse to give you permission. For example, the state creates artificial scarcity for taxis in cities by issuing only a fixed number of medallions, essentially licences to work in that occupation. Certainly those who have such permission guard it jealously. It is, after all, a competitive advantage. And so Uber and Lyft, which challenge that model, face the combined opposition of the state and entrenched competitors. Power and money. It is that simple.
Similarly, regulations in most states require new cars be sold by a car dealer from a physical location. The dealers jealously guard their state-granted monopoly and fight against companies like Tesla that want to sell directly to consumers. Power and money. The middle man must be paid.
Sure, other occupations, like surgery, require more skill, but that hardly changes the logic. It is supply and demand, power and money.
Fortunately we’re seeing this American License Raj start to crumble. Ride sharing services are not going away. Tesla is getting state regulations changed. And there are many conversations about enabling nurse practitioners to do more and more things that were once reserved only to doctors.
The libertarian perspective on this all comes down to a short list:
A licence regime is created by claiming it benefits the public. But, if you look behind the curtain, who is really benefiting?
What new approaches are being held back because of such regulations?
Are we constraining innovation to a narrow track that avoids challenging entrenched interests? Does that really benefit the public?
What other, voluntary, means are their for informing consumers and ensuring that they get the quality of service that they desire?
What means of private address are available to consumers when they do not receive the quality of service that they paid for?”
https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-libertarian-view-occupational-licensing-%E2%80%93-from-cosmetology-to-surgery?share=1
“The notion that occupational licensing is a tool for fortifying the interests of a privileged class is not new. The eminent American libertarian Lysander Spooner waged an impassioned war on professional licensure for lawyers, arguing that it was a needless privilege, a set of peremptory rules that unfairly disadvantaged the poor. In an 1835 letter to the Massachusetts legislature, published by the Worcester Republican, Spooner attempted to show that the existing rules made access to the legal profession “actually impracticable” for “the well-educated poor” — a grouop, he argued, “more likely to excel in [the profession] than any other.” Given the opportunity cost associated with years of legal apprenticeship, few but those of independent means could afford to endure the long road to bar admission. Moreover, even one “fortunate enough to obtain credit and assistance” would “come into practice with such an accumulation of debt upon him as the professional prospects of few or none can justify.” Spooner’s radical condemnations of the policies of his own time astutely previse the student loan crisis of the present. The steady accumulation of required academic credentials and licenses has made it impossible to embark on a professional career without amassing crippling mountains of debt. But instead of attending to the underlying problems — committing to a policy of retrenchment, limiting the number of licenses and regulations — government compounds them by spilling additional taxpayer dollars into failed programs.”
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/occupational-licensing-is-scam