How should a registrant’s experience of racism, including while practising the profession, be considered when imposing a disciplinary sanction? That was the central issue in McKenzie v College of Nurses of Ontario, 2026 ONSC 5070 (CanLII).
In this matter, the appellant nurse admitted to several instances of professional misconduct:
Those admissions concerned sleeping while on shift; failing to provide timely care to Patient A; deficient documentation respecting Patients B through F; and failing to follow the facility’s Code Blue Policy [i.e., call a Code Blue] when attending Patient. On the night shift of 12-13 November 2018, another nurse observed the appellant sleeping at the nursing station before and during that nurse’s break. Prior to going on her break, the other nurse had told the appellant that Patient A was confused and prone to wandering. She asked the appellant to keep an eye on the patient. The nurse returned from her break early and found Patient A naked, standing and urinating on the floor. The appellant’s own scheduled break had not yet begun.
The discipline panel “ordered that she receive a reprimand, that her certificate of registration be suspended for one month, that she attend a minimum of two meetings with a Regulatory Expert, and that she notify her employers of the discipline decision for a period of 12 months after returning to nursing practice.” Only the sanction was appealed.
On appeal, the Court noted:
The evidence concerning the appellant’s experiences of racism was significant and troubling…. The appellant’s testimony must be approached with the seriousness and sensitivity it deserves. Anti-Black racism can be overt or systemic. Its effects may include isolation, diminished trust, added stress, and reduced access to the collegial and institutional supports upon which professionals ordinarily depend. Evidence of such experiences cannot be treated as incidental merely because a professional continues to bear responsibility for meeting the standards of the profession. At the same time, the existence of racism, and even its serious effects upon a professional’s working life, does not automatically establish that racism explains or mitigates every instance of professional misconduct occurring in that workplace. The required inquiry remains individualised and evidence based.
The panel considered and accepted the evidence of the nurse’s experience of racism. However, that alone was insufficient to lessen the sanction. In the panel’s view, the issue “was whether the evidence established the further proposition that those experiences were sufficiently connected to the misconduct to constitute a mitigating factor.” While there need not be a causal connection, there must be “some connection between the racism experienced and the circumstances said to explain or mitigate the misconduct.”
Despite the brevity of the panel’s reasons, the Court was satisfied that the panel had applied the correct legal framework and “concluded that this connection had not been established on the evidence.”
When imposing a disciplinary sanction, it is important for regulators to consider both the evidence of the racism experienced by the registrant and how that might, in the circumstances, explain or mitigate the misconduct.
