Michael Higgins: Ontario regulatory body drops inquest into COVID-critical doctor College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has ended its quest to silence anti-lockdown pediatrician Kulvinder Gill

“If we don’t push back...the Enlightenment era with its ideals of rationalism, democracy, individualism, the scientific method, fundamental freedoms and the like...may be gone forever.”

‘If the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) was to be believed, the tweets of Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill were positively dangerous.

They were unprofessional, irresponsible, critical of official messaging and potentially destructive to public health, alleged the CPSO. The college was unhappy that Gill believed government and public health responses to COVID were based more on politics than science.

So it comes as a surprise that the college, which had been hellbent on bringing Gill to heel, has decided to end a planned disciplinary hearing against her. Lisa Bildy, Gill’s lawyer, said in an email that the CPSO seemed to concede it had a bad case.

“It appears they finally recognized that Dr. Gill’s concerns about the harms of lockdowns and vaccine mandates were well-supported and could not reasonably be said to constitute ‘misinformation,’” Bildy said.

Gill’s case is another example of a regulatory body trying to exert control over the tweets, speech and language of a professional. The most high-profile occurrence is that of psychologist Jordan Peterson, who is fighting an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo social media training, thereby regulating what he says on social media.

“Regulatory bodies have become far too comfortable with exerting control over the expression and values of their members,” said Bildy. “The (CPSO) is legislatively tasked with keeping patients safe from incompetent and unethical doctors and regulating the profession in the public interest. It is not there to give disgruntled people on Twitter a tool for ‘cancelling’ people with whom they do not agree, nor to take up the mantle of enforcer for politicians who don’t want their policies challenged.

n 2020, Gill, a pediatrician with immunology training practising in the Greater Toronto Area, found herself the subject of complaints — from members of the public, not patients — to the CPSO. The Democracy Fund, a civil liberties organization assisting Gill, described her in 2022 as the subject of a “malicious online campaign” that encouraged the public to file complaints about her.

Five complaints were dismissed by a committee of the CPSO, but three resulted in “cautions” being issued in 2021 against the doctor. The cautions, which Gill is now challenging in a judicial review, stem from two tweets she wrote in August 2020: “There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown,” and “If you have not yet figured out that we don’t need a vaccine, you are not paying attention.”

At the time of these tweets, there was no COVID vaccine. The Democracy Fund, in an October 2022 news release, explained that Gill’s second tweet was made in reaction to a press conference in which Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, conceded that the release of a vaccine wouldn’t end lockdowns and restrictions.’…

“If we don’t push back, an enforced consensus on the social and scientific issues of our time will steamroll over us. If that happens, especially on a global, technocratic scale, the Enlightenment era with its ideals of rationalism, democracy, individualism, the scientific method, fundamental freedoms and the like — a relative blip on the historical time scale — may be gone forever.”

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ontario-regulator-walks-back-inquisition-against-covid-critical-doctor