Traditional Chinese Medicine Association & Human Rights

By Les Moncrieff, R.Ac

This has been a difficult year for our profession. Recent events such as the firing of our Registrar has polarized our associations and confused and divided registrants.

The TCM Association directors have decided to take a clear stand on this issue.

“December 10th is International Human Rights Day. The United Nations states that human rights are those rights which are inherent in our nature and without which we cannot live as human beings. A right is something which all people are entitled, such as the right to vote, the right to an education or the right to express your views freely.

Human rights include two broad categories:

1. Civil and political rights, such as peoples right to fair and equal treatment, to justice and political freedom and to protection from abuse of power.
2. Social, economic and cultural rights, an adequate standard of living, to freedom from hunger, and to health and education

The TCM Association believes that such rights are fundamental to the principles of our profession. Directors of our association feel strongly that it is our role as an association to defend not only the rights of our members, but the human rights and basic dignity of all people. This includes our Registrar who has devoted the last several years of his professional career to the health and wellbeing of Traditional Chinese Medicine. We believe that “legal due process” was not followed when our former Registrar, Mr. Randy Wong was fired from his position. This is a complex case and we are insisting on an independent review of this issue, the financial audit and other recent CTCMA activities.

Our profession is not being well served by a college that attempts to gag its association presidents and registrants and ignore basic Canadian laws. A respected and fair college can only be created by the balancing role of a strong association that ensures Canadian laws and basic human rights are being exercised. To date Mr. Wong has not been charged with any offense, yet has been fired and slandered and given no opportunity to defend himself. Something is seriously and fundamentally wrong with this process.

As a practitioner, we could be accused of an offense by anyone. Would the CTCMA step in and take away your license to practice without any formal charges or legal investigation into the allegation? Could you expect any support or counsel from your association? Has anyone thought to ask the obvious, “What if he is innocent?” I personally would not want to be in the position of judge, jury and executioner based on the manner in which the evidence has been presented. Apparently many are quite willing to formulate such verdicts based on an AGM Kangaroo court.

For the past year, our TCM Association has been attempting to unify our fragmented service organizations and isolated registrants under one association that can truly and democratically represent and advocate on behalf of its members. (QATCMA & the TCMA had plans to merge). The TCMA directors strongly believe we need to take this stand for human rights and Canadian legal due process. Unfortunately at our last board meeting many of the QATCMA directors have decided that silence and no involvement best represents their membership. The directors of the TCM Association and several QATCMA directors, including myself could not endorse non-action in this important matter. The TCMA withdrew its intention to merge our associations at this time, based on differences in the understanding of the roles of an association, particularly in regards to Canadian legal process and human rights.

The TCM Association is established upon firm principle and a clear mission statement which reflects Canadian laws.