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A Richmond man who was practising acupuncture despite a court injunction barring him from doing so has been found in contempt of court by a B.C. Supreme Court judge and fined $20,000.
“It is important that the amount of the fine be significant so that it cannot be seen as a cost of doing business,” Justice Hugh Veenstra said.
The College of Complementary Health Professionals of B.C. (formerly the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners) had sought a contempt finding against Wai Cheong Chik, 75.
The college licences acupuncturists in the province.
It was in October 2024 that Veenstra made the contempt finding before proceeding to the newly released Feb. 25 penalty decision.
The judge said Chik was not a college registrant. Rather, he had unsuccessfully applied in 2000. Nor was he a registrant of any other health college.
Veenstra said that, in 2016, the college received a report that unlicensed acupuncture was being practised in the basement of a Richmond residence.
After investigation, the college commenced proceedings in the case and, on June 29, 2016, Justice Christopher Grauer granted an injunction barring Chik from performing acupuncture.
Veenstra said in his 2024 decision that the college had established beyond a reasonable doubt that Chik engaged in acupuncture for a fee four different days in early March 2024.
“This is not a case of an isolated lapse in judgment, and was a deliberate breach in circumstances in which Mr. Chik had consented to the 2016 injunction and clearly knew what he was doing was prohibited by the order he had agreed to,” Veenstra said.
The college had sought a suspended sentence of 30 days in jail, two years of probation and a fine of $5,000, plus special costs of the entire court proceeding.
It was Chik who proposed the $20,000 fine.
