Disciplinary and other committees often have the authority to impose terms, conditions and limitations (TCLs) on the practice of a practitioner. Little guidance is given as to what sorts of TCLs are appropriate and which would over-reach the regulator’s authority. The case of Khalil v Ontario College of Pharmacists, 2019 ONSC 3738, <http://canlii.ca/t/j11kg> demonstrates that the scope of TCLs are broad.
In that case a pharmacist was found to have participated in significant false billing of the publicly funded drug program. Patient records had also been falsified to support the claims. The finding and most of the sanctions were agreed to including a lengthy suspension of the practitioner’s registration and ongoing monitoring upon reinstatement. However, the practitioner challenged the jurisdiction of the discipline panel to impose TCLs prohibiting him from owning or being a director of a corporation that owned a pharmacy. He argued that the regulation of pharmacies, including ownership and control rules, were addressed in a different statute that “covered the field”. The Court found that the discipline panel’s interpretation of the broad authority to impose TCLs was reasonable and that the other statute did not preclude the TCLs. The Court also accepted the strong public interest purpose of the TCLs on the facts of the case.
So long as any TCLs flow from and are relevant to the findings made by the discipline panel and the public interest is being served by the regulator, the power to impose them is quite broad.