Clinic ordered to pay B.C.’s costs after failure of ‘marathon’ private health lawsuit – CTV
January 28, 2025
A private medical clinic that launched an unsuccessful constitutional challenge of Canada’s public health care system must pay the B.C. government’s legal costs, after what a judge calls a “gruelling marathon” of a case.
Cambie Surgeries Corp. launched a lawsuit back in 2009, claiming B.C.‘s Medicare Protection Act was unconstitutionally preventing people from getting private health care when the public system was unable to provide it.
The B.C. Supreme Court, the B.C. Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada all shot down the private surgery clinic’s case, but the issue of trial costs was left in the air.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Lynn Whately ruled Monday that Cambie Surgeries should pay the Attorney General of British Columbia’s trial costs, calling the long-running litigation “prodigiously lengthy and complex.”
The ruling says the lawsuit by Cambie Surgeries was being funded by the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
The ruling doesn’t specify the province’s costs, but the foundation said last year the B.C. government was seeking $1.7 million from the charitable foundation and “its partners.”
