{"id":18960,"date":"2020-07-13T02:03:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T06:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/Life-Insurance-Blog\/supreme-court-upholds-genetic-non-discrimination-law\/"},"modified":"2020-07-13T02:03:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T06:03:05","slug":"supreme-court-upholds-genetic-non-discrimination-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/07\/13\/supreme-court-upholds-genetic-non-discrimination-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme court upholds genetic non-discrimination law"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in favour of a federal law that prohibits third parties, including insurance companies, from requiring individuals to submit genetic information.<\/p>\n

The law, Bill S-201<\/a>, was introduced in 2017 as a private member\u2019s bill by the retired Liberal senator James Cowan, and sponsored in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Rob Oliphant.<\/p>\n

It aims to offer valuable protections to Canadians\u2019 genetic information, including a prohibition on life insurance companies\u2019 use of genetic tests as a condition of coverage. It also includes exceptions for medical, pharmaceutical, and scientific purposes.<\/p>\n

Aside from amending the Canadian Labour Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, the legislation introduced the first nationwide penalties against genetic discrimination, including a fine of up to $ 1 million or imprisonment for five years, reported CBC News.<\/p>\n

According the news outlet, Cowan and Oliphant were encouraged to push the legislation after being told by geneticists at a Toronto hospital that parents were choosing not to get genetic tests done out of fear that it would have impact their future prospects for employment and insurance eligibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s the key to precision medicine, personalized medicine,\u201d Cowan told CBC News.<\/p>\n

As the bill was being shepherded through the House of Commons, it faced some resistance from then-justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, who contended that it infringed on the sovereignty of provinces and territories.<\/p>\n

She sent letters to all the provinces and territorial governments soliciting their opinion on its constitutionality. Quebec challenged the law<\/a> and referred it to the province\u2019s court of appeal, which unanimously found in 2018 that the legislation was unconstitutional as it fell outside the framework of criminal law.<\/p>\n

That decision was appealed by the Canadian Coalition for Genetic Fairness, which took the issue to Canada\u2019s top court. On Friday, it upheld the constitutionality of Bill S-201 in a 5-4 decision, vindicating the mission pursued by Coan and Oliphant.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody should be discriminated against because of their DNA, because of their chromosomal makeup,\u201d Oliphant said.<\/p>\n

Read the original article at https:\/\/www.lifehealthpro.ca\/rss\/ <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in favour of a federal law that prohibits third parties, including insurance companies, from requiring individuals to submit genetic information. The law, Bill S-201, was introduced in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}