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Physicians are Guilty Until Proven Innocent

(Letter to the editor)

Dr. Douglas Mark wonders "where the fairness is in a process where a person is deemed guilty and then forced to pay out of their own pockets to prove their innocence". ("Time to review the Medical Review Committee," the Medical Post, July 30)

I hold no grief for colleagues swindling the system, but in English Law a person is innocent until proved guilty. In Napoleonic Law a person is guilty until proved innocent. In Canada, we do not have English law.

There was a time when-by order of the then premier of Ontario-any doctor making more than half a million a year was publicly pilloried in the press by having his name published. Most of them were radiologists with technicians and secretaries and rents and leases on millions of dollars of equipment to pay out of their ill-gotten gains, but it was not deemed politically expedient for the CPSO to spend one cent on informing the gullible public it protects.

In Canada, doctors need look no further than the federal Tax Court to find their partners in crime, where it takes many years and millions of dollars in lawyers' fees to try to prove innocence. Government lawyers can likewise spend millions of taxpayers' money in dragging out a war of attrition.

In Toronto recently it was heavily publicized that a family suspected of operating prostitution rings had millions of assets gleefuly seized. The subsequent trial was not "news." Instilling fear works better than fairness.

Doctors, pimps and victims of "tax avoidance" con artists: All are denied the basic civil rights routinely extended to murderers and pedophile rapists. It seems the only quasi-legitimate game in town is to be a CEO and bilk shareholders of billions.

Dr. James Clark, Oakville, Ont.


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