Healthcare workers complained he acted improperly toward them
The Alberta Court of Appeal has denied a psychiatrist’s request for a stay in proceedings arising from two healthcare workers’ complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, alleging that he had acted improperly toward them.
The respondent College’s complaints director began investigating the complaints made in 2020 and 2021. During the investigation, the applicant psychiatrist raised concerns regarding an incomplete and biased investigation.
A College investigator issued a preliminary Investigation report per complaint. The investigator found that the applicant had contravened some provisions of the Canadian Medical Association Code of Ethics and Professionalism.
In response, the applicant’s counsel raised arguments about the facts, credibility, new evidence, animus, and bias.
In July 2022, the complaints director referred the complaints to a hearing under s. 66(3)(a) of Alberta’s Health Professions Act, 2000. Alleging a lack of objectivity, incompleteness, faulty conclusions, and bias, the applicant unsuccessfully attempted to reverse the referral.
Before the Court of King’s Bench, the applicant applied for judicial review of the referral of the complaints to a hearing. He also applied to stay future steps, including the issuance of a notice of hearing and the scheduling of the hearing, until the hearing of the judicial review application.
In 2023, Justice Charlene Anderson of the Court of King’s Bench refused to stay the proceedings. She ruled that:
- The applicant failed to satisfy all three parts of the test to stay the proceedings
- Any irregularity in the investigation would not necessarily make the court intervene in the administrative proceedings
- The administrative process could address any frailty in the investigation
The applicant appealed the denial of a stay. On May 22, 2024, the Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. On Dec. 12, 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the applicant’s application for leave to appeal.
On Nov. 7, 2025, Justice Allison Kuntz of the Court of King’s Bench denied the judicial review application. She considered the application premature and meritless. She said it likely aimed to delay or interfere with the investigation and hearing process and thus abused the process.
The applicant appealed the denial of the judicial review application. He applied to stay the enforcement of the complaints director’s referral decision and the next steps of the disciplinary proceedings, pending the determination of his appeal.
The applicant alleged that staying the referral decision would prevent the College from formalizing and posting the notice of hearing on its website and spare him reputational harm. The applicant added that suspending the disciplinary proceedings pending against him would save him from the irreparable harm of defending himself against the fruits of a flawed investigation.
Stay declined
Last Mar. 17, in Akinnawonu v College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, 2026 ABCA 81, the Court of Appeal of Alberta refused to stay the operation of the complaints director’s referral decision, pending the determination of his appeal against the denial of his judicial review application.
The appeal court pointed out that the applicant’s request for a stay repeated largely the same arguments – regarding alleged legal errors, irreparable harm, and the balance of convenience – he had made before Justice Anderson in 2023.
The appeal court said its findings on these arguments would be the same as those Justice Anderson had issued in 2023 and the appeal court had upheld in 2024.
The appeal court stressed that courts should recognize the public interest in helping a professional body like the College, which regulates the medical profession, perform the disciplinary function imposed by the legislature.
As noted previously by the appeal court and Justices Anderson and Kuntz of the Court of King’s Bench, the appeal court explained that courts have been hesitant to short-circuit administrative processes midway.
The appeal court held that staying pending administrative proceedings would increase costs, delay the proceedings, squander judicial resources, potentially abuse the process, and possibly hamper the disciplinary proceedings before the making of a final determination.
As the College had requested, the appeal court awarded it double costs on Column 1 of the Schedule C tariff. The appeal court found enhanced costs justified due to the procedural history of this case.
