Towards a Post-Social Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Person Through Markets? Conceptions of Citizenship and the Implications for Health Law as Governance

Abstract

In the context of increased expectations of healthcare services and fiscal pressures, rights claims constitute a force pushing for privatization and thus threaten Canada’s single-tier public system. This article introduces the concept of a ‘post-social right’ to understand the current legal effort to enforce a right to healthcare derivative of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Commonly considered as a ‘negative’ right, I suggest that the right also has positive capacity. Rather than simply protecting against unjust state intervention, section 7 claims valorize a particular mode of sustaining life, liberty and security of the person according to neo-liberal principles. A right to markets in healthcare aligns health law with the logic of prudentialism as a technology of governance. As the enforceability of the right expands and strengthens, health law as governance operates to normalize market solutions to health matters. It follows that a form of two-tier citizenship arises, dividing ‘activated’ citizens from the ‘inactive’.