BC Health-Care Workers Challenge Province’s Vaccine Mandate in Court

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry speaks in the press theatre at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on March 10, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito)

A lawsuit filed against B.C. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry is underway as a group of health-care workers who lost their jobs for not receiving COVID-19 shots aim to have the province’s vaccine mandate removed.

The hearing centres around a lawsuit filed by non-profit group the Canadian Society for the Advancement of Science in Public, on behalf of nurses and doctors who did not get vaccinated and were fired for it.

The case started in B.C.’s Supreme Court on Nov. 20 and is expected to run for 10 days.

According to court documents, the health-care professionals argue COVID-19 no longer presents “an immediate or significant threat to public health.” Moreover, they argue that the order was “ineffective” and “unreasonable” on grounds that unvaccinated professionals did not pose a greater risk of passing the virus on to patients because of the preventative measures already in place.

Nearly 2,500 B.C. health-care workers lost their jobs for not being vaccinated, according to the Vancouver Sun. In total, about four percent of workers in the Interior Health region and three percent of workers in Northern Health were fired as a result of the vaccine mandate, the Sun reported.

‘No Provisions’

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) says in a release it supported the legal challenge to the public health order which was brought forward on March 16, 2022.

“The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 11 health-care workers, including front-line staff as well as administrative and management personnel,” JCCF said in its news release. “This court action includes applicants who worked remotely and had no direct contact with patients.”

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The lawsuit covers workers who refused the vaccine for various reasons including religious, conscience, and medical concerns.

“No provisions for alternative employment or accommodation were made for healthcare workers who chose not to get injected for reasons of conscience or religion, for medical reasons, or for those with natural immunity to COVID,” JCCF’s release said.

“The rights of healthcare workers must not be disregarded, even when the goal is to protect public health,” lawyer Charlene LeBeau said in the news release. “This is especially true in relation to mandating a new medical treatment that has a terrible track record for adverse reactions and, in any event, has proven to be ineffective in stopping infection or transmission.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. Henry’s office for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

B.C. is the last remaining province to keep the vaccine requirement for health-care workers in place, meaning that professionals who have not been fully vaccinated are not yet allowed to return to work.

The province dropped the vaccine mandate for public service workers in April but has not yet done the same for health-care workers.

“I am of the opinion that any slippage in the level of vaccination in the health-care workforce could result in significant illness on the part of the health-care workforce which would undermine the capacity of the health-care system to respond to a significant resurgence of disease,” Ms. Henry said in an Oct. 5 public health order.

“It is essential to maintain the high level of vaccination currently in place in the hospital and community care workforce since this is the best means available by which to mitigate the risk to the health of patients, residents, clients and workers and to ensure the preparedness and resiliency of the health-care system, both at present and in the event of a resurgence of COVID-19 disease in the province.”

The order does not have an end date.

JCCF noted the mandate remains in effect despite a health-care crisis in B.C. fuelled by persistent labour shortages.

“Understaffing in British Columbia’s health-care system is literally killing people, based on an ideological decision to punish doctors, nurses and other health-care workers more than two years after they legitimately exercised their Charter right to bodily autonomy,” JCCF President John Carpay said in the release. “Science and medicine ought to prevail over ideology.”