THE QUESTION OF PENALTIES...
DISCIPLINE SUMMARIES TO INCLUDE
MORE FACTS, CIRCUMSTANCES
Spring 2015
Vol. 31 No. 1
ISSN 0821-6320
Julie Maciura
Recent Discipline Summaries have provoked
healthy discussion amongst the profession
with respect to the penalties that are
sometimes ordered in discipline cases.
FEATURED
What you need to know!
This issue of College Connection highlights
five recent policy changes that will assist
you in your practice.
Summaries of discipline matters are
published for several reasons, the most
significant of which is transparency.
The publishing of findings against a member
assist the public with informed decisionmaking, colleagues with referral choices and
industry and government with meeting other
obligations such as access to controlled
drugs. In addition these summaries serve as
learning tools for the profession as a whole.
The challenge is, it is a summary.
The College complaints and discipline
process is an area of law called
“administrative law”, which contains many
An important difference between
criminal cases and College
discipline cases is that in the
latter, the issue of “intent” does
not have to be proven in order for
misconduct to be found.
judge-made rules. Some of those rules are
in place to ensure that natural justice and
fairness are afforded to the member who is
the subject of a concern.
Some of those rules describe the factors
that a screening committee must consider
in determining whether regulatory action is
warranted. And some of those rules give
guidance to the regulator about what kind
of penalties different misconduct will attract.
That judge-made law is binding on the
College and its Committees.
While that judge-made law will have been
considered by all of the participants in the
discipline process, and may have been a
factor in a member deciding to plead guilty,
those court cases might not be referenced in
the Discipline Summaries as distributed by
the College.
Additionally, the summaries of discipline
decisions that are published in the College
newsletter likely will not include all of the facts
and circumstances that were known to the
Discipline Committee in a particular case.
That may make it difficult for readers to
understand why a particular penalty was
imposed in a given case.
continued on page 2
CONTENTS
Legislative Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Antimicrobial Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Learning in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Veterinary Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Rabies Clinics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Fiscal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Strengthening the veterinary profession through quality practice and public accountability.
www.cvo.org