CVBC Wasted Money To Harass And Abuse South Asian Veterinarians And Now Facing “Bankruptcy”!

While the “racist” College of Veterinarians of British Columbia (CVBC) is crying bankruptcy after going broke because of their ongoing mismanagement, including bringing in expensive cases against largely South Asian veterinarians where they are spending upwards of $15,000 a day to hold unnecessary hearings of trumped up charges to continue their decades-long harassment of visible minority veterinarians. The CVBC continues their campaign of abuse against South Asian veterinarians with non-stop disciplinary hearings while nearly none against White veterinarians. There are a whopping 30 hearings happening against Indo-Canadian veterinarians, and all they want to do is make up for their shortcomings by imposing fines. And to add insult to injury, the first fine is a whopping $40,000 -Unbelievable! The South Asian veterinarians are urging the NDP government not to bail out CVBC as they are not be trusted and will only use the funds to further the racism and abuse against them which is now over two decades old. They would like instead the Premier David Eby government to take over the College and bring in lasting changes that will end this long campaign of abuse even after the South Asian veterinarians won a landmark Human Rights case, which found that the College systematically discriminated against foreign-trained veterinarians. “This CVBC is unfortunately one of the most racist professional regulators and it is their mismanagement and ongoing discrimination that has led them to this financial chaos,” Dr Pavitar Bassi, the owner of Central animal emergency clinic in Coquitlam, told DESIBUZZCanada. “We all (South Asian Veterinarians) believe that the College should not be bailed out by the BC government as that funding will only cause more damage to us with their racist and discriminatory hearings.”

By R. Paul Dhillon – Editor DESIBUZZCanada

VANCOUVER – While the “racist” College of Veterinarians of British Columbia (CVBC) is crying bankruptcy after going broke because of their ongoing mismanagement, including bringing in expensive cases against largely South Asian veterinarians where they are spending upwards of $15,000 a day to hold unnecessary hearings of trumped up charges to continue their decades-long harassment of visible minority veterinarians.

The CVBC continues their campaign of abuse against South Asian veterinarians with non-stop disciplinary hearings while nearly none against White veterinarians. 

There are a whopping 30 hearings happening against Indo-Canadian veterinarians presently and all they want to do is make up for their shortcomings by imposing fines. And to add insult to injury, the first fine is a whopping $40,000 – Unbelievable!

But recently, CVBC has been claimed that it has no money and is going bankrupt and will not be able to pay it’s employees and is begging the NDP government to allow itself to increase membership fees of veterinarians to any level to cover their losses which South Asian veterinarians say are largely as a result of this one-sided abuse in the form of unnecessary hearings.

“This CVBC is unfortunately one of the most racist professional regulators and it is their mismanagement and ongoing discrimination that has led them to this financial chaos,” Dr Pavitar Bassi, the owner of Central animal emergency clinic in Coquitlam, told DESIBUZZCanada.

“We all (South Asian Veterinarians) believe that the College should not be bailed out by the BC government as that funding will only cause more damage to us with their racist and discriminatory hearings.”

Bassi’s colleague Dr. Dilbag Rana echoed his sentiment, saying it is the College’s unnecessary harassment of South Asian veterinarians where complaints against them could be done in a simple and straightforward manner but the CVBC is dragging them on for months and years with added expenses for both that has caused their financial ruin.

“You know it’s the same old racist “Old Boys Club” behind all this misery against us and for theirs sins they are now facing bankruptcy,” Rana told DESIBUZZCanada. “The BC government needs to dissolve the College and take over regulatory function to fix the racism and mismanagement for once and for all.”

The South Asian veterinarians are urging the NDP government not to bail out CVBC as they are not to be trusted and will only use the funds to further the racism and abuse against them which is now over two decades old. They would like instead the Premier David Eby government to take over the College and bring in lasting changes that will end this long campaign of abuse even after the South Asian veterinarians won a landmark Human Rights case, which found that the College systematically discriminated against foreign-trained veterinarians.

CVBC commissioned the Cayton Report, written by Greg Cavouras, with the law firm Sudden McFee + Roos, (a partner at that firm – Elizabeth Allan – has been retained by CVBC on several disciplinary hearing files), found much wrong with the way the College functions including complete lack of consistency in dealing with complaints, including veterinarians not knowing of a complaint against them for months, in some cases more than six months after the complaint was filed. It also found that the complaint process was flawed among other things.

But the only thing that CVBC acted on from the numerous recommendations is to hold more expensive hearings that has caused it’s expenses to skyrocket.

Many analysts agree with South Asian veterinarians, who continue to face the College’s wrath, that BC government should not bail out CVBC and should take it over to give it a full wringing to clean all the mess.

“They obviously haven’t learned anything from the landmark Human Rights decision in the favor of discriminated South Asian veterinarians and now face more Human Rights complaints so the government will be throwing good taxpayers money at a very problematic regulatory body that has shown again and again that they can’t clean up their act,” one analyst told DESIBUZZCanada.

“I’m gob-smacked at how badly the CVBC has been governed since I left,” Luisa Hlus, former Registrar of CVBC, told DESIBUZZCanada. “I can’t believe how much deficit the College is running as it’s now heading well above a $1 million.”

The CVBC after Hlus’s reign has gone hog-wild with expenses with salaries doubling to over $1.9 million. Since Hlus’s departure, CVBC has three lawyers and six paralegals on staff. This is staggering given that bigger regulating bodies like the Dental Association has only one lawyer. With this many lawyers, you would think that they handle all legal issues in house but no. CVBC has shelled out over $900,000 to outside lawyers, partly to fight people like Hlus from representing veterinarians who are being targeted by the College.

CVBC has also increased Inspectors three-fold with a total of 18 with inspections costing more than $300,000. But the biggest cost has been it’s ongoing agenda against foreign-trained veterinarians which now looks to bankrupt the College.

The news of CVBC’s financial troubles was recently shared by the College with it’s members in an email: “The College has the unfortunate distinction of being the last remaining professional regulator in the province and perhaps the country to be governed by a legislative framework that gives effect to an antiquated approach to professional regulation. Specifically, our legislative framework places the authority to define the parameters that govern all core regulatory functions, including fees, in the hands of the voting majority of registrants. As most of you likely know, the College’s registrants have declined to permit an increase to any fees, including application and facility fees, since 2011. As a result, our fees have not increased in almost 14 years, a period in which inflation alone has accounted for an increase in costs of over 35%. Moreover, proportionate to number of registrants, the College receives twice the number of complaints received by Ontario’s regulator and five times more than that received by Alberta’s, which are the two most comparable veterinary regulators by size and function. Due to these factors and others, the College is currently running an annual deficit approaching $1M and is projected to be insolvent in shortly over a year,” wrote Christine Arnold, CVBC Registrar and Chief Executive Officer.

“We have been working urgently and diligently with the provincial government to address this crisis. We are seeking a legislative overhaul that will address the systemic shortcomings in our legislative framework, as well as interim emergency financial relief to allow the College to continue to operate and allow veterinarians to continue to be self-regulated in British Columbia. As you can imagine, fixing these fundamental and urgent issues destroying the College must be the predominant priority of the College. No other issue will matter if the College ceases to be a going concern.”

But Clea Parfitt, lawyer for the South Asian veterinarians, said Arnold made no mention of the recapture of costs that will happen as the disciplinary matters finish and costs awards are made against losing veterinarians.

“I have argued costs awards should not be made – an argument I likely will not win, Parfitt wrote to the South Asian veterinarians in an email. “As you know, those awards may be in the $50,000 to $75,000 range per hearing.  So far there is only one hearing at the penalty stage – Chaudhry 20-105b – but there will be several others this year.  Theoretically the College could owe costs if they lose – but so far no luck on that front.”

While the College is claiming $1 million loss, NDP’s appointee to the College Gian Sihota referred to it showing a projected loss of $1.3 M.  

The reason why the College is in financial distress is because they are choosing to hold hearings over matters that do not warrant it – including hearings about failures to cooperate and medical records – to hold repeat hearings on the same issues (some of the Pavittar Bajwa files for example) – and to continue with hearings even when the owners are no longer involved and they could easily choose not to proceed – leading to extra legal complexity and expense.

The other reason is that they are running multiple years of discipline complaints as hearings at the same time.

South Asian veterinarians say it’s for these reasons, their financial picture is at its grimmest in 24/25 but will likely become less grim as the College goes forward and recaptures some of its output through costs awards.  On the one hand, you may wish the government to consider this so it does not jack up the professional fees unnecessarily – enriching the College and making them even more dangerous.  On the other hand, if you think the government may shift to a different structure you may prefer, you may wish to downplay these considerations.

In recent years, they have suddenly begun targeting South Asian clinics again without any valid reason. The College’s report appears to be biased, as it mentions there was no discrimination after 2015. 

But South Asian Veterinarians say this is inaccurate, as the college has been involved in a human rights case since 2017. 

“The initial part of the report is misleading, as the college want to settled this case by offering compensation and an apology. I believe that during the upcoming hearing, the college may be required to pay a substantial amount, estimated to be around 3-4 million dollars and there is another human case is coming up,” one South Asian veterinarian told DESIBUZZCanada.