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What do these numbers say about democracy and the value government assigns to voter opinion?

Photo by Nick Procaylo / PNG

Our ongoing constitutional challenge aims to prevent irreversible harms and end the suffering caused by rationed access to medical care. Governments and opposing intervenors in our case ignore the irreversible suffering of the original six patient plaintiffs, two of whom are now deceased. They represent millions of patients waiting for care in Canada.

“We certainly acknowledge that there are patients who are waiting longer than they should and there are patients who are experiencing pain and discomfort while they’re waiting,” admitted Jonathan Penner, a government lawyer.

Current laws enforce medical enslavement in a uniquely Canadian way, operating as a state monopoly in providing medical care. Governments deny responsibility and blame hospitals or doctors, ignoring the fact that they appoint hospital boards and fund hospitals. Inadequate funding also restricts doctors’ ability to practise and treat patients, while hundreds of underemployed specialists also can’t obtain hospital privileges.

A filibuster trial is inappropriately ongoing because government lawyers cannot defend it with factual evidence. I was recently on the witness stand and questioned almost exclusively on billings, ledgers, payments and profit margins. Weeks of court time were wasted as lawyers tried to exclude evidence on wait lists, patient harms and rationing. They battled to exclude the governments’ own self-incriminating data. The legal process has been made as onerous and costly as possible. By prolonging the trial, government hopes that funding constraints will force us to abandon our court action.