Nouvelles

Michel Doucet, the Moncton lawyer leading the group, has filed a notice of default against the province because its defence is now more than one month overdue.

Hubert Dupuis, president of the Committee for Equality in Health Services in French, said Wednesday the notice was necessary since the province does not appear to be taking the linguistic challenge seriously.

"If we were to drag this on it would just cost the taxpayers more money," Dupuis said.

"We decided to press the accelerator so they would start to move in the right direction. I think the government should be able to understand that."

Dupuis said his committee and its advisers, who includes retired Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache, simply want a clear court date.

"They are trying to prolong this situation and they are probably trying to exhaust us," he said. "We just want to get this going."

Bastarache has offered the legal opinion that the Committee for Equality in Health Services, which is made up of doctors from the defunct Beauséjour Health Authority, as well as other community activists, has a constitutional case in its opposition to the reforms.

The committee argues that the decision to reduce the number of regional health authorities in the province from eight to two had the effect of taking away the governance of health care from francophones and resulted in an unfair distribution of specialized services between mainly English- and mainly French-speaking regions.

Critics warn the court case could lead to duality in health care.

Health Minister Mike Murphy has countered by introducing amendments that guarantee the current language of work in the province's hospitals. He also said that francophone input into the healthcare system will not change, and has not changed since the reforms were put in place last September.

Murphy said the reforms were necessary to cut costs and duplication within the system.

He has assembled what he called a "dream team" of lawyers to defend the reforms, including Michel Décary, a renowned trial lawyer at the Montreal office of the international Stikeman Elliott law firm.

A Moncton litigation lawyer who is not involved in the case warned Wednesday the francophone group's decision to file a notice of default may backfire and could slow the contentious civil action, costing both sides more time and money.

"I would venture that in a complicated case such as this, a court would not be looking too kindly on a plaintiff who is using these kinds of tactics," the lawyer said, who did not want to be identified.

"The practice is that, more often than not, lawyers file beyond the deadlines provided. This appears to be a tactic from the plaintiff, but it could actually slow things down."

Provincial court rules give defendants 20 days in a civil action to file a defence from the date a notice of action was received. The defence can then file a notice of intent which will expand that deadline for 10 more days.

After 30 days, if a defence has not been filed, the plaintiff can then file a notice of default.

In law theory, if a defendant is found to be in default, it signals all allegations in the statement of claim are deemed to be true.

But New Brunswick rules urge that a notice of default should "be liberally construed to secure the just, least expensive and most expeditious determination of every proceeding on its merit," the lawyer said.

"Now the defendants will probably have to file the motion to set this aside which will add cost and will not be the most expeditious because it will take time to do," said the lawyer.

"It defeats the plaintiff's probable tactic."