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Professionals - Registry. Rowe v. College of Nurses of Ontario and al.
In Rowe v. College of Nurses of Ontario and al. (Div Court, 2023) the Divisional Court considered (and dismissed for prematurity) a JR against "the refusal of the Executive Director of the College of Nurses of Ontario to remove the address of his non-nursing employment from the public register":[1] Before us today is the Applicant’s application for judicial review of the refusal of the Executive Director of the College of Nurses of Ontario to remove the address of his non-nursing employment from the public register. The standard of review is reasonableness.
[2] The Applicant is a member of the College. He is entitled to practise as a nurse, but he is employed as a security guard in a secure setting for mental health patients. His name and business address are included in the College’s register, which is available to the public. He says that his concern is that his patients, upon seeing his employment address, which contains the company name on his uniform, will know that he is the Craig Rowe who is listed on the Register as a nurse. He tells us that the patients often have delusions that make them hostile to nurses.
[3] The Register is kept under the authority of s.23 of the Health Professions Procedural Code, which is Schedule 2 to the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, S.O. 1991, c. 18. Subsection 23(1) requires the Registrar, who in the case of the College of Nurses is the Executive Director, to maintain a register. Subsection 23(2) requires the register to contain the member’s name and business address. Subsection 23(6) allows the Registrar to decline to publish the address if the Registrar has reasonable grounds to believe that disclosure may jeopardize the safety of an individual. Subsection 23(7) permits the Registrar to decline to publish the address if the Registrar has reasonable grounds to believe that the information is obsolete and no longer relevant to the member’s suitability to practise.
[4] The Applicant applied to the Registrar to remove his employment address from the register on the ground that he worked in a high security environment and publication of his address could endanger his safety. The Registrar replied that the request would be considered if the Applicant provided documentation to prove his assertion. The Applicant did not provide any such documentation. Instead, he brought this application, arguing that the Registrar acted unreasonably in that the statute does not permit the register to contain information that is irrelevant to the member’s suitability to practise and that the College’s policy on this issue is unreasonable.
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