ABSTRACT
This article critically examines the Supporting Ontario’s Recovery Act, 2020 (‘SORA’) and the civil immunity it extends, inter alia, to Ontario’s long-term care facilities (‘LTCFs’) in the wake of the novel coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. It concludes that tort law is a necessary vehicle for accountability and systemic change and should not be proscribed. Part I examines the manner in which increasing reliance on privatization and insufficient regulation of Ontario’s long-term care system left residents and workers particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. Part II illustrates the imprudence of granting civil immunity to LTCFs on the contention that any supposed public benefit it yields is outweighed by the harm it portends to both victims and the public at large. Analysis reveals that the aim of SORA’s civil immunity is not the furtherance of public health interests in a time of crisis, but rather the preservation of the economic interests of LTCFs (insofar as SORA applies to them). Construed accordingly, the benefits of this civil immunity do not justify its negative consequences, which are explored as three interrelated concepts: the denial of corrective justice; the inequity in bailing out the potential tort liabilities of LTCFs; and the removal of a key incentive for institutional change.
Novaković, Steve, Shielded from Shame: Civil Immunity for Ontario’s Long-Term Care Facilities in the Wake of COVID-19 (May 1, 2021), (2021) 79:2 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review 257.
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