How I Plan to Change my World of Medicine in 2007

It was a memorable experience to act as the Expert Witness for Dr. Jacques Chaoulli and George Zeliotis during their team’s successful seven-year court challenge that convinced the Supreme Court of Canada to invalidate sections of Quebec’s medicare legislation that infringed upon the rights of Quebecers to life, liberty and security (inviolability).

This landmark victory for health-care freedom in Quebec implies that the same principles of reasonableness, justifiability, minimal impairment and proportionality would equally apply to a court’s analysis of infringing medicare legislation elsewhere in Canada. This strengthens my resolve in 2007 to press for political reform or judicial invalidation of such legislation, including the Canada Health Act.

Dr. Edwin Coffey est un Senior Fellow à l’Institut économique de Montréal.