Ottawa abandons NIHB consent forms

Pierre Pettigrew, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s new health minister, has cancelled a much-criticized scheme that required Inuit to surrender their privacy rights to receive health care benefits under the NIHB.

Jose Kusugak, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, praised the move in a press release this week.

“No other Canadians have to provide consent of this nature, in turn providing personal information to a number of health professionals and government agencies. It was an invasive solution, and we are pleased that the requirement to sign a consent form will not come into force,” Kusugak said.

Called the “NIHB Program Consent Form,” the document would have given Health Canada bureaucrats – and numerous Health Canada agents and contractors – permission to look at sensitive personal information contained in medical files.

All Inuit and status First Nations people ran the risk of being denied NIHB benefits if they refused to sign the forms by March 1, 2004.

The intent of the scheme was to track prescription drug abuse among aboriginal people, following a prescription drug scandal in western Canada, when it was revealed that some aboriginal NIHB recipients were using NIHB money to supply their addictions.

But privacy advocates, aboriginal leaders, and northern politicians all denounced the scheme, saying it violated the privacy rights of aboriginal people.