Case information

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Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Health law Public health Regulations Whether this Court should show deference or genuine restraint in reviewing the legality or vires of regulations Whether the private label ban is consistent with the purpose of the parent statutes Whether the private label ban is a condition of listing or a prohibition Whether the parent statutes authorize regulations that interfere with otherwise lawful commercial activity, namely, the decision of a pharmacy chain to invest in its own drug manufacturer Whether the parent statutes authorize regulations that discriminate amongst drug manufacturers by banning some of them from the Ontario marketplace.

The Shoppers Drug Mart (“Shoppers”) and the Katz Group companies own, franchise and operate pharmacies across Ontario. They applied for an order quashing Ontario regulations that effectively prohibited private label generic drugs from being sold in Ontario. Sanis Health Inc. (“Sanis”) is a subsidiary of Shoppers and is a generic drug manufacturer that outsources the actual fabrication of the generic drugs that it sells primarily to Shoppers. The price of generic drugs is regulated by provincial legislation. The Drug Interchangeability and Dispensing Fee Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.23 (“DIDFA”) permits and requires pharmacists to dispense generic drugs that have been designated as interchangeable with a brand drug. The Ontario Drug Benefits Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.10 (“ODBA”) sets out, inter alia, the rules governing the listing of drugs as benefits to eligible persons such as seniors and the amounts the province will pay to pharmacies for dispensing drugs. Between 2006 and 2010, changes to regulation of prescription drug sales in Ontario had reduced the profits of pharmacies, first through the elimination of rebates that pharmacies received from generic pharmaceutical manufacturers, and later by the phasing out of “professional allowances” they received from the manufacturers. The goal of the legislative changes was to reduce drug costs to the consumer in Ontario. Private label generic drug companies are non arms length from the pharmacies that sell their products. Shoppers and the Katz Group sought to use their own private label generic drugs rather than purchasing those generic drugs from an arms length third party. The 2010 amendments to the regulations effectively prohibited them from doing so.