Dr. M.T.Chau

President, Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners & Acupuncturists Society at their 9th Anniversary Celebration Banquet on May 21/04.

Ladies and gentlemen, honourable guests, good evening.

This is truly a memorable moment as there are so many very important people attending today’s meeting. On behalf of our society, the TCM Practitioners and Acupuncturists Society,

I would like to thank all of you, our distinguished guests, for coming.

I am proud to say that the TCM Practitioners and Acupuncturists Society is a member council of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies and that we are the first society in Canada to organize international symposiums for Chinese medicine.

Our society was one of the joined applicants in legislation of TCM to become part of the health care system acknowledged by the BC provincial government. Cooperating with TCMA and QATCMA, our ongoing tasks from hereon are the tireless promotion amongst members within the TCM practitioners community, as well as the monitoring of and providing assistance to the College of TCM Practitioners and Acupuncturists of BC (CTCMA).

Our society is one that dares to speak the truth and to do the right things in the face of adversaries.

Using this occasion, I hereby represent the TCM Practitioners and Acupuncturists Society in making the following plea:

1. We hope that the Canadian Federal government, in accordance to the Health Professional Act, would waive collection of G.S.T. from TCM and acupuncture services.

2. We ask that the provincial government be involved in the regulation of TCM and Acupuncturists. The TCM community consisting of health professionals should be led by health professionals; the government should not appoint lawyers to tell the health professionals in the TCM community what is best for their patients. The current chair of the C.T.C.M.A. has been in position for over 6 years, far exceeding his appointment contract; he renewed his contracts by self-appointment. In addition, he had also appointed himself as chair of the Registration Committee. However the provincial government does not seem to pay attention to these rather questionable actions. Also, despite a majority vote against contract renewal of financial auditor, the auditor was rehired against the voters’ will, solely by the chair’s recommendation.

3. We are asking for a regulatory board that is efficient (as opposed to incompetent), open (as opposed to secretive), and without conflict of interest (as opposed to biased and protective towards certain special individuals). We do not want our hard work in bringing TCM to the healthcare system be brought to waste. Mismanagement will reflect upon the professional community whom the regulatory board represents; lack of proper regulation will result in degrading service quality standards and loss of public trust to the profession. Also, we hope the regulatory board will be sensitive to the financial difficulties of many of our members. Our licensing fee is currently too high; unnecessary expenditures should be eliminated meanwhile licensing fee should be reduced. To squander the hard earned money of practitioners in costly yet unnecessary legal proceedings is extremely unwise.

Once again, allow me to thank everyone for attending and participating in tonight’s meeting. I hope that our society can receive your feedback so that we may better serve both the patients and TCM practitioners alike.