Dr. Michal Princ is charged with professional misconduct after granting Covid vaccine exemption requests
Dr. Michal Princ is a family medicine physician with 49 years of experience. In 1975, he received his medical degree in Czechoslovakia, then under communist rule. He left his homeland and began his medical practice in Canada in 1989.
On April 5, 2023, Dr. Princ was accused of failing to follow vaccine exemption requirements that were imposed on medical doctors by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA), Alberta Health Services (AHS) and Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. After granting Covid vaccine exemptions to some of his patients in violation of Alberta Health Order 43-2021, he was charged with professional misconduct.
The Justice Centre took up Dr. Princ’s defense.
Alberta refuses to grant Covid vaccine exemptions
While sometimes described as a mere “guidance,” the requirements imposed on doctors by the CPSA, AHS and the Chief Medical Officer of Health, were strict and inflexible. For example, it was not clear that any condition would entitle a patient to an exemption. This uncertainty was reflected in the “guidance” provided to medical doctors. According to the CPSA’s Exemption Requests: Patient FAQ, “There are virtually no medical conditions that universally warrant a complete exemption.”
Meanwhile, according to the CPSA’s Guidance for physicians: Requests for COVID-19 vaccination exemptions, “There are no medical conditions that would universally warrant a complete exemption from initial COVID-19 vaccine.”
One of the primary resources provided to physicians was Alberta Health Services’ COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group Rapid Brief. The closest that guidance came to permitting any exemption was in the case of a severe allergic reaction to a Covid injection. Only deferrals could be entertained, not permanent exemptions. Even patients who suffered myocarditis or pericarditis from a Covid injection were only entitled to a deferral “until more evidence is available.”
“This mandatory ‘Guidance for physicians’ that was imposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta resulted in an unknown number of Albertans getting pressured, coerced or manipulated into receiving an injection that they did not consent to voluntarily,” stated John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre.
Millions of Albertans face tough choices as Alberta forgets principle of informed consent
Many Albertans faced a tough choice: be vaccinated for Covid or be fired. Many college and university students received the Covid vaccine only because they would have been suspended or expelled from their programs otherwise. Many teenagers and young adults, a demographic not threatened by Covid, chose Covid vaccination only because they wanted to continue participating in sports and recreation. Countless Canadians were fired for refusing to get injected with a substance for which no long-term safety data exists. Many were then unable to collect Employment Insurance.
“The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta violated the ethical principle of informed and voluntary consent for medical treatment by threatening medical doctors with the loss of their license if they exercised their independent clinical judgment about the safety and efficacy of new vaccines for which no long-term safety data existed,” continued President John Carpay.
According to the Patient FAQ, doctors would “only offer an exemption based on the latest medical evidence from authorities like Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, the National Advisory Council on Immunization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The Brief, however, was not an actual scientific analysis, but rather a “grey literature” survey of what others were doing and recommending.
Lawyer Glenn Blackett observed, “One thing we found most alarming about all of this guidance was the degree to which the basic medical ethical principle of informed consent was simply ignored. How did health professionals in Alberta recommending or administering vaccines obtain informed consent where patients were subject to the coercive pressure of vaccine mandates? The CPSA told doctors how to participate in and, effectively, help enforce the vaccine mandate program, which consisted of rejecting all or ‘virtually’ all exemption requests. But it seems the CPSA entirely failed to grapple with the resulting ethical dilemmas.”
AHS’s Rapid Brief said, “This review of current guidelines considers medical exemptions and does not address human rights, religious or other possible non-medical reasons for seeking vaccine exemptions.” The CPSA’s own general standards of practice include the doctrine of informed consent. The CPSA standards include the common-sense observation that, for informed consent to exist, a patient must be free of “undue influence, duress or coercion.”
Vaccine mandates in Alberta and across Canada effectively turned millions of Canadians into second-class citizens who were prevented from participating in sports, enjoying restaurants, leaving and re-entering Canada, visiting their elderly parents in nursing homes, continuing their university education, and keeping their jobs.
“These kinds of draconian restrictions on personal freedoms surely constituted ‘undue influence, duress or coercion,’ negating informed consent. Yet in the ‘Rapid Brief’ document of Alberta Health Services, informed consent is only mentioned once, when recommending vaccination to women ‘who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant,’ or to people with a history of allergies. Perhaps even more troubling is the CPSA’s COVID-19 Vaccine: Questions and answers for the public and healthcare practitioners, which encourages doctors advising vaccine-hesitant patients to employ ‘motivational interviewing’ techniques. When I read that, a shiver ran up my spine,” continued Mr. Blackett.
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta withdraws charges against Dr. Michal Princ
Health Order 43-2021 was later invalidated by the Alberta Court of King’s Bench on July 31, 2023.
In Ingram v. Alberta, Justice Barbara Romaine found that the Order had effectively been issued by the provincial cabinet and not by the Chief Medical Officer of Health. According to the Public Health Act, all health orders must be issued by the Chief Medical Officer of Health, not by the provincial cabinet. There order was, therefore, invalid. The Justice Centre provided lawyers for the Ingram action – one of the first constitutional challenges to Covid lockdowns in Canada.
Because the Order under which Dr. Princ was charged turned out to be invalid, the CPSA withdrew its charges against him on January 10, 2024.
Lawyer Andre Memauri stated, “Our client was ethically motivated by the sacrosanct and longstanding principle of ‘do no harm.’ We are pleased the CPSA has withdrawn charges, although we wish the charges had been withdrawn to protect professional independence, not based on the Ingram ruling. The relationship of trust between each physician and his or her patients must be brought back to the forefront of medical practice.”
