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In November 2017, the OMA made sweeping, undemocratic bylaw changes without any membership consultation to consolidate power by removing open, transparent nominations for its board and open nomination and election for its committees.

The OMA’s bylaws now explicitly state that its board directors must always act in the best interest of the OMA corporation, not its mandatory members.

The OMA Board also had approved a draconian Code of Conduct Policy (COCP) to suppress physicians’ freedom of speech with then OMA president Shawn Whatley and its board claiming it was “standard.” No such far-reaching policy exists for any other medical association in Canada, and such a policy is beyond the OMA’s legal mandate.

Implementation of the OMA’s COCP was delayed when Concerned Ontario Doctors launched a petition in January 2018 which garnered thousands of signatures from patients and frontline physicians.

In the OMA board report to council in April 2018, the OMA admitted its COCP’s plan to investigate and discipline its own mandatory members would require “judicial review”; this is in stark contrast to its earlier claim of it being “standard.” Instead, new OMA president Nadia Alam, who had helped create the original COCP, oversaw the approval of “OMA Principles Guiding Member Interaction” in May 2018 which gives the OMA authority to dictate not only what it deems to be “false” but also gives itself the authority to declare speech to be abusive if it ”intentionally or unwittingly…humiliates, demoralizes or otherwise undermines the victim’s credibility, effectiveness, and personal well-being,” including any social media content directed towards an OMA “physician leader and/or containing any OMA-specific content.”