It’s hard to believe the opinion of a single lawyer is holding up the release of a crucially important provincial task force report that shines a spotlight on the sexual abuse of patients by doctors and recommends ways to better protect the public. But it’s true.

The report, paid for with public funds after public hearings, has been gathering dust at Queen’s Park since March after lawyer Douglas Harrison of Stikeman Elliott found it to be defamatory, though other lawyers consulted by the province did not raise that concern.

Harrison said it “impugns all of the health profession colleges in Ontario, taking a broad-brush approach to accuse all of them of . . . turning a blind eye to sexual abuse and failing to appropriately discipline professionals.”

But if that’s what the task force found, all the more reason to release its report. The public has a right to know and the government needs to publicly discuss and review the panel’s findings and recommendations to protect patients as quickly as possible.

Indeed, the whole point of a task force is to reveal ugly truths and cut through secrecy surrounding uncomfortable issues. That’s why other lawyers familiar with libel and defamation law believe a court would not find its findings to be defamatory. As Osgoode Hall law professor Jamie Cameron points out, “it should hardly be a surprise that the report would be critical and even harshly critical.”

Further, the findings are, lawyers argue, protected under libel laws since task forces are obliged to inform authorities about matters of public interest. And it’s clear that the release of this report, obtained by the Star’s Kevin Donovan, is in the public interest.

Consider that doctors who have been found guilty of sexually abusing patients are still practising in Ontario. Dr. Javad Peirovy, for example, pleaded guilty in 2013 to sexual assaults that took place at walk-in clinics between 2009 and 2010. But he is still practising even after the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons’ own lawyer recommended to its disciplinary panel that he lose his licence for touching female patients’ breasts when he had no reason to do so. Regardless, the panel ruled that he can practise on female patients as long as he is accompanied by another health professional.

That ruling was made despite the already proven difficulty of enforcing sex-based restrictions on a doctor’s practice — never mind the inappropriateness of a sexual predator acting as a doctor for any patients. In fact, another male doctor, Sharif Tadros, was found guilty of sexually assaulting female patients but was allowed to continue to practise if he treated only male patients. He was later found to be treating women.

Is it any wonder, then, that one of the recommendations in the initial draft report recommended stripping medical colleges of the power to investigate and prosecute a variety of matters, including those involving sexual abuse allegations?

Another reason the report should be released is that not doing so stifles the voices of those who testified before the task force about their personal experiences with abuse by doctors. Not releasing the report means they went through that painful experience in vain.

Theirs are not the only voices the public is robbed of hearing. What about the authors of the report who are experts in this field? Human rights lawyer Marilou McPhedran has previously been involved in two task forces into similar issues. And nurse Sheila Macdonald is the provincial coordinator of the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Care and Treatment Centres.

The task force was created in December 2014. It’s now 2016. It’s past time that the voices of the panel and the victims and authorities they consulted were heard and the force’s findings and recommendations publicly examined, debated and acted on. Anything else looks like a cover-up.