In a professional discipline hearing, the panel found that a dentist committed professional misconduct by engaging in sexual relations with a patient who was not his spouse within the meaning of the governing health professions legislation.
The panel rejected the respondent’s position that a same-day proxy Islamic divorce and private Islamic marriage rendered the patient his spouse, finding the evidence unreliable and, in any event, insufficient for recognition under Canadian law.
The panel also found a boundary violation where the respondent co-signed a patient’s mortgage and became a co-mortgagee on the property.
The allegations were proven on a balance of probabilities, including sexual abuse of a patient and disgraceful, dishonourable, unprofessional or unethical conduct.