Like any of Canada's historical mistreatment of certain segments of society, be it Native Schools, religious institutions, Hockey Canada's treatment of sexual abuse victims, the military's treatment of sexual abuse victims, we see a staggering power imbalance between victims and perpetrators of harm. In this case, it's women who report sexual abuse (females are the vast majority of victims) by male physicians (the vast majority of perpetrators) to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO, the College).  Did you know....

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• these victims are designated mere witness to their own abuse, in other words other witnesses who were not present during the occasion(s) of the abuse are given equal consideration (the doctors colleagues and cohort who are naturally biased in favour of their fellow physician)

• if a discipline hearing does occur, it is extremely rare for victims to have their own lawyer while the physician has a team of top notch lawyers paid for by our taxes

• victims have no access to the evidence submitted by the physician while the CPSO gives unfettered access to the physician and his legal team

• unlike a civil or criminal court in this country, where both parties have to adhere to evidentiary rules, the CPSO is able to pick and/or omit any evidence they choose

• the discipline panel is heavily coached by the CPSO and the doctor's defence team

• the entire advisory council for the Discipline Tribunal consists of lawyers from firms that represent physicians and/or the legal team from the CPSO, there is not one patient representative or lawyer who is involved.  All their meetings are "off the record", yet this process is supposed to protect the patient

• for those few victims who get their cases sent to hearing, even if sexual abuse is one of the allegations (most often it is not despite victims insisting the were sexually abused), the CPSO always throws in the allegation of "disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct".  The Prosecutor and the Legal Team for the physician and The College impresses upon the discipline panel their belief that most allegations have not been proven so therefore they should simply go with the professional misconduct finding of "disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct".   This almost always ends up with the sexually abusing physician getting only a short suspension of a few months for what the public believes is unprofessional conduct.

• every year the CPSO offers these multi victim sexually abusive physicians the opportunity to plea "no contest" to lesser charges such as disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct which cannot be appealed and disguises the true nature of the abuse to the public

• plea deals have and continue to silence thousands of sexual abuse victims, who then have their victim impact statements redacted by the CPSO before being presented to the discipline panel

• plea deals result in grossly inadequate suspensions of a few months which allows the physician to return to work in short order and abuse more victims!  Or the physician is allowed to retire with absolutely no repercussions whatsoever

• in a final insult, the CPSO appeals to victims to sign a Publication Ban "for their protection" despite that, due to current privacy laws, the medical college cannot reveal personal information and/or complainants health information.  In fact, victims who have refrained from signing a publication ban and requested to have their names visible in the public documents were refused.  I happen to be one of them.  So tell me again who the Publication Bans protect?

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