Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:59:59 -0400

From: Vaughan Black

Subject: More on maternal torts in Alberta

Colleagues, my note about Alberta's introduction of the Maternal Tort Liability Act generated more commentary than I expected, so it may be of interest if I provide a little more background.

Earlier this year a private member's bill was introduced in the Alberta legislature: The Brooklyn Hannah George Rewega Right of Civil Act Action. It would give a retroactive right of action to one child allegedly injured by her mother's negligent driving while still in the womb. It's only a private member's bill, but it's from a gov't backbencher who has been campaigning vigorously to get the legislature to enact this right of action for his seriously disabled young constituent.

Obviously if the bill passed it would give rise to the question of why this one infant should be singled out from all others. So the gov't has brought in the Maternal Tort Liability Act. Of course the MTLA would not be retroactive so it would not apply to the Rewega case, but it would make the Rewega bill, should it be enacted, somewhat less anomalous.

It's hardly a picture of well thought out law reform, but there it is. And of course it's constitutional. (Though in a year or three when the Alta. gov't bring in a bill that purports to grant them the right to lock up pregnant women who are addicted to crystal meth [which they are already proposing to do to minors], and purports to justify it by pointing out that such persons already owe duties to their fetuses to drive carefully, we may have an interesting constitutional battle.)

Regards,
vb

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