Case information

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Administrative law – Judicial review – Standard of review – Boards and tribunals – Procedure – Evidence – Applicants challenging College of Pharmacists of British Columbia bylaw – Is evidence irrelevant or inadmissible on judicial review, solely because a non-adjudicative decision-maker neglected, ignored, refused or failed to consider that evidence at the time of its decision – Does a self-regulating professional body comply with its statutory requirement to act only in the public interest if it has a bona fide belief that its subordinate legislation is warranted, regardless of whether this conclusion is reasonable in light of all the available, relevant evidence.

The respondent is the regulatory body responsible for registering and licensing pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in British Columbia in accordance with its authority under the Health Professions Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 183. In 2013, the respondent’s board adopted bylaws prohibiting pharmacists from making incentive programs available to customers in order to induce them to purchase pharmacy services, drugs or devices from particular pharmacies. The applicants are pharmacies offering customer benefits and loyalty programs to customers. They brought a petition to quash the bylaws as being unreasonable, arguing, inter alia: i) there was no evidence of actual harm justifying such a broad prohibition of incentives; ii) the bylaws went beyond what would be required to address the theoretical harms; and iii) the bylaws had a net effect of being harmful to the public interest. The Supreme Court of British Columbia struck down the bylaws as being overbroad and unreasonable. The appellate court allowed the respondent’s appeal and set aside the lower court order.