Complaints-screening committees determine whether a concern warrants a referral to discipline or, failing that, deserves remedial action. Can a decision to take no action (or just remedial action) be used at future discipline hearings? Some guidance was provided in Rusli v Ontario College of Pharmacists, 2026 ONSC 336 (CanLII).
A pharmacy was unable to purchase veterinary drugs directly from a pharmaceutical company and so the pharmacy entered an arrangement with a veterinarian so that it could order such drugs through the veterinarian’s account with the company. The arrangement involved the pharmacy placing orders for drugs through the pharmaceutical company’s online portal, using an identification provided by the veterinarian. It also included using the name of a fictitious contact person. The veterinarian received a 5% commission, which he invoiced to the pharmacy.
The regulator for veterinarians amended its regulations in 2015 to prohibit veterinarians from supplying drugs to pharmacies. After the regulation change, the complaints-screening committee of the pharmacy profession regulator took no action on complaints against the pharmacist and her colleagues with respect to their ordering drugs through the veterinarian.
Later the veterinarian was successfully disciplined by his own regulator for allowing the pharmacy to order drugs through his practice. The managing pharmacist was then referred to discipline by her regulator for the orders placed through the veterinarian. The pharmacist sought to use the screening committee’s earlier decisions to demonstrate that such conduct was not unprofessional.
The discipline panel refused to admit into evidence those screening committee decisions on the basis that they were not relevant. The screening committee’s decision was only that the concerns should not be referred to discipline in the circumstances and one of the circumstances was that the pharmacist had assured the screening committee that the pharmacy was altering its practices. However, after those screening committee decisions, the pharmacy ordered an even higher volume of drugs through the veterinarian’s practice. It was not clear whether the first screening committee was fully aware of the fictitious way the orders were placed.
The Court agreed that the complaints-screening committee’s decisions were irrelevant to the issue of whether the pharmacist had engaged in professional misconduct.
On the issue of sanction, however, evidence of the assurances provided by the pharmacist about changing the pharmacy’s practices was admitted and considered to be an aggravating factor. The Court agreed that this use of the screening committee decision was now permissible because it was relevant. This is consistent with other, somewhat analogous, decisions in which prior warnings provided by screening committees are seen as relevant to the issue of sanction: Covant v. College of Veterinarians of Ontario, 2023 ONCA 564 (CanLII), leave to appeal refused 2024 CanLII 37800 (SCC).
The Court also upheld the related finding that the pharmacist’s participation in the veterinarian’s scheme, which was a breach of his obligations under the veterinary regulations, constituted professional misconduct.
The guiding factor as to whether a screening committee decision can be relied upon at discipline is its real relevance to the issues in that hearing.