A former Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) captain and helicopter pilot has applied for permission to appeal a denial of his Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, after he was terminated from the military for refusing a COVID-19 shot due to his religious beliefs.
Captain Michal Zagol filed an appeal on July 4 to the Social Security Tribunal of Canada (SST) Appeal Division, following a June 9 denial from a lower level of the SST stating he was ineligible for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits on the basis of alleged “misconduct.”
Mr. Zagol, who is 35 and Roman Catholic, applied for a religious exemption to the CAF’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy when it was implemented in the fall of 2021, around the time of the federal election.
“I said I was unable to be vaccinated due to my religious beliefs,” he told The Epoch Times on July 4. “My religion is not misconduct as it has been characterized.”
“I researched at length and discovered all of the vaccines were tested on human fetal cells. Taking the COVID shots would be immoral,” he added.
He said that despite a number of meetings with his commanding officer, explaining his religious beliefs and discussing why they prevented Mr. Zagol from being vaccinated, he was declined an exemption at the beginning of December 2021.
The denial came after the CAF had already escalated administrative penalties against him, said Mr. Zagol. He submitted a grievance but was terminated from his position on June 13, 2022.
“It was really upsetting,” he said.
Mr. Zagol was in the Air Force division and started his six years of training in a Grob G120A fixed-wing trainer, a two-seat aerobatic low-wing aircraft with a tricycle landing gear, specifically designed for agility and precision training.
Unfortunately, those hours have not directly translated into a civilian role. “That’s why I had to be on EI in the first place, because there was no comparable job for me to go to.”
At that point, released from the military and in the civilian world, the former captain was a highly trained pilot without a private pilot’s license. Regardless of his hours of flight training as a CAF captain, Mr. Zagol still has to go through the same commercial pilot training requirements as anyone else, according to the Canadian Air Regulations (CARS).
The former captain spent a number of very difficult months unemployed, before finally registering as an apprentice in a trade. Mr. Zagol recently moved to Calgary, Alberta, in hopes of finding a good job and obtaining first a civilian private pilot’s license (which is a prerequisite to a commercial pilot’s license), with the goal of ultimately securing a job as a pilot with a civilian aviation company.
“I didn’t think they would really go through with terminating me,” said Mr. Zagol. “It caught me by surprise. I was totally blindsided. I never intended or planned to transition to civilian life.”
“I probably had over a million dollars worth of training,” he added. “I had a job with job security, I was paid well, my pay was adjusted to inflation. I had always wanted to fly.”
Mr. Zagol’s attorney, Jody Wells, told The Epoch Times on July 5 that her client’s employer, the EI Commission, and the SST General Division “all accepted that the reason for his inability to receive COVID shots was his sincerely-held religious beliefs, yet they still deemed it misconduct under the EI Act.”
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) was contacted for comment by The Epoch Times, but did not reply by press time.
He was denied EI at three levels of adjudication, and Mrs. Wells said he must now apply for leave, which is permission, to appeal the most recent decision to the Appeal Division of the SST.
“The Employment Insurance Act does not define misconduct, but historically, the Social Security Tribunal and Federal Court of Appeal have found ’misconduct' in cases involving alcohol-related absenteeism, failing employment drug tests, smoking crack, conflicts of interest, Criminal Code offences such as drunk driving, participation in fraudulent activities, and the like,” Mrs. Wells said.
“Conspicuously absent the list is adhering to one’s conduct-governing, sincerely-held religious belief,” she added.
“While the SS Tribunal and the FCA have oft taken the position that a wilful act or omission which prevents an employee carrying out his duties to the employer constitutes misconduct, it is not obvious that an employee owes a duty to an employer to forsake his religion on pain of dismissal,” said Mrs. Wells.
“Sincerely-held religious belief does not evaporate simply because it is inconvenient.”
