Canadians who experience medical harm at the hands of the health-care system they pay for are often chagrined to learn that, if they pursue their legal remedies in court, they are also footing the bill to defend the very physicians they claim have harmed them. Now it seems that Canadian taxpayers have been victimized by this system, too.

Ontario's College of Physicians and Surgeons receives numerous deeply concerning reports of doctors sexually abusing their patients each year despite the adoption of a "zero tolerance" approach to such abuse 20 years ago. This persistent problem has eroded public trust in doctor self-regulation.