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Taggart J.A. of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. There would appear to be no statutory duty requiring officials of a provincial institution to force feed A without her consent. Also, it was not clear that there is a common law duty to force-feed a prisoner in such circumstances, and the Court of Appeal should not make a declaratory order with respect to such a duty unless there is clear authority for making it. Accordingly, the Court should decline to make a declaratory order where the inmate is on a hunger strike and, although in poor health, is of sound mind and has indicated that she does not want to be fed even if she should lapse into unconsciousness. The Court of Appeal emphasized that in this case they were concerned solely with the existence of the duty contended for by the A.G. of Canada. Put in the negative, the Court was not concerned with the power of the CSC, or indeed any other prison authorities, to forcibly feed prisoners under their care and control. This is so because in the Court's view, there may arise circumstances that would entitle the corrections authorities to plead, in answer to claims maid by prisoners fed without their consent, the power to do so in the circumstances then present. To emphasize, the Court was not concerned with power, but rather with the existence of a duty. Although the Penitentiary Service Regulations imposed upon the CSC a duty to provide essential medical and dental care to inmates, the court ruled in this case that there was no statutory duty requiring prison officials to force-feed an inmate on a hunger strike without his or her consent. As well, it was not clear that there was a common law duty to force-feed an inmate in such circumstances.
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