Challengers to Travel Vaccine Mandate File an Appeal

People wait in line to check in at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on May 12, 2022. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

Challengers to Ottawa’s vaccine mandate for domestic travel filed a notice of appeal with the federal court on Nov. 18 in hopes of overturning a previous decision that said their case was “moot” given that the mandate had lapsed on June 20.

“Associate Chief Justice Gagné erred in law or fact and law by failing to consider, or, alternatively, by failing to provide reasons for concluding that there was no important public interest in dedicating judicial resources to decide whether the Mandatory Vaccine Requirements were constitutional,” says the notice of appeal from businessmen Karl Harrison and Shaun Rickard.

The notice also says federal ministers who were “threatening” to reintroduce mandates if deemed necessary constituted a “live controversy,” and that the judge had been incorrect in saying the government’s health measures were driven by the evolution of the situation and scientific knowledge.

The notice says there is a lack of “evidentiary foundation for this conclusion.”

The legal proceedings for the four lawsuits have revealed evidence from officials and documents indicating the government had assessed the risk of in-flight transmission as low, that it had limited data on the impacts of vaccination on in-flight transmission, and that it knew a few weeks after imposing the mandate that vaccination offered waning and very limited protection against infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Justice Jocelyne Gagné ruled on Oct. 21 that the lawsuits were moot, saying there was “no important public interest” to justify hearing the cases.

“The Applicants have substantially received the remedies sought and as such, there is no live controversy to adjudicate,” Gagné wrote in her decision.

The attorney general had filed a motion on June 28 to have the lawsuits dismissed on the grounds of mootness, shortly after the Trudeau government had decided on June 20 to not renew the interim orders for the domestic travel mandate.

The mandate had come into force in October 2021 and prevented millions of unvaccinated Canadians from taking a plane, train, and some marine vessels.

Along with Harrison and Rickard, all the other applicants are also appealing the decision. They include PPC Leader Maxime Bernier, former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford and co-applicants, and Quebec lawyer Nabil Ben Naoum.

“The public interest in vaccine mandates is overwhelming, and in trying to downplay that reality we believe that Assistant Chief Justice Gagné erred and issued a flawed decision,” Harrison told The Epoch Times.

Attorney Samuel Bachand, who represents Bernier, told The Epoch Times the issue was the “controversy of our times” and hence shouldn’t be overlooked by the courts.

“If the vaccine mandates are not sufficiently serious issues for the Federal Court to address, then we should either abrogate the Charter or the Federal Courts,” he said.