A Calgary woman who was denied unemployment benefits after being fired for not having a COVID-19 shot has filed an application in Federal Court for judicial review.
Rebecca Abdo is a married, devout Christian who applied for a religious exemption after her employer, Canadian Blood Services (CBS), implemented a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy. Abdo, who had worked for the company for more than 10 years as a medical laboratory technologist, was denied her exemption and then fired. The termination was recorded as “dismissal with cause.”
Abdo’s employment insurance (EI) claim was then denied, first by the EI program, and then by the commission on appeal, with the government taking the position that she was fired for her own “misconduct” by declining to receive COVID shots.
Abdo only recently found a part-time job working two or three times per week after being unemployed since fall of 2021. Besides significant financial stress from the job loss, Abdo lost all her work benefits and a workplace that she loved. “I had no reason to think I was going to leave. I loved what I did. My colleagues were like my family,” she told The Epoch Times on May 15.
James Kitchen, the constitutional lawyer who represents Abdo, told The Epoch Times that like Abdo, thousands of Canadians lost their jobs because they didn’t take the shots and were then wrongfully denied government assistance.
‘Misconduct’
The lawyer said that to establish misconduct, it must be shown that the employee was no longer meeting a required condition of employment, implying that there was a pre-existing condition of employment at the time of Abdo’s hire more than a decade ago.In cases where the Federal Court has upheld a finding of employee misconduct prior to COVID, an employee was typically involved in substance abuse, fraud, theft, altering a time card, or committing a crime under the criminal code, according to court documents.
In Abdo’s case, she expressed that her unwillingness to have the shots was based on sincerely held religious beliefs. Despite her following the employer’s policy for requesting an exemption based on “human rights grounds” such as religious beliefs, including submitting a letter from her pastor, she was denied the exemption.
Canadian Blood Services deemed her refusal to be vaccinated as “due to a personal belief and not a belief imposed by religion,” according to documents filed at the Federal Court. The employer also said that the “spiritual leader of the Christian denomination has not demonstrated a legitimate religious basis for exemption from vaccine mandates in any established stream of Christianity.”
When contacted by The Epoch Times, CBS said they are not able to comment on specific cases.
“Exemption requests for non-medical reasons (i.e. an employee’s religious belief, practice or observance) have been assessed and evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and in accordance with provincial human rights codes and case law,” Delphine Denis, media manager for the organization, said on May 19.
On Nov. 1, 2021, Abdo was placed on a 10-day unpaid leave of absence. On Nov. 16, 2021, she was terminated, even after answering all the questions her employer asked.
“They never denied the genuineness of my faith, my conviction,” said Abdo. “But all the questions, were not to seek knowledge or understanding. It was to poke a hole in my faith.”
Abdo went through the entire EI process including appeals, first applying for benefits and being denied, with the Canadian Employment Insurance Commission (CEIC) stating she lost her employment due to her own “misconduct.”
Abdo’s case alleges CEIC ignored the circumstances of Abdo’s dismissal, specifically a section of the Employment Insurance Act that states an employee must be given the “benefit of the doubt.” Instead, CEIC compared Abdo’s religious adherence to cases where an employee had been fired for abusing alcohol and failing drug tests, according to Kitchen.
The Epoch Times contacted Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees the Employment Insurance program, but did not receive a reply by press time.
Judicial Review
That has opened the door for Abdo and her lawyer to request judicial review from the Federal Court. The Liberty Coalition, a Christian defense fund, is funding Abdo’s case and covering her legal fees with donations the not-for-profit organization receives.Abdo said this fight is important. “What they did was completely wrong. I have every right to make an informed decision about what I put in my body. I have every right to my faith and my religion,” she said.
“The Supreme Court of Canada has said religious beliefs are personal. Employers have been blatantly denying the law, firing Christians who won’t take the shot,” Kitchen agreed.
He maintains being fired for not taking a COVID shot does not legally qualify as “misconduct.”
“That’s like you know, showing up to work drunk, not showing up to work at all, stealing from the cash register. That’s the stuff in case law that’s actual misconduct under the law,” he says.
The EI Commission will now have to prove in court their decision was reasonable, transparent, intelligent, and defensive, said Kitchen. “I’m quite confident the federal courts are going to agree with Abdo. And if we win this case, I’m going to put out a call to all Canadians who applied for EI and were denied and tell them to go back to the Commission and pound on their doors until they give people their benefits.”
