A group of workers fired from B.C. health authorities and health care facilities for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are taking the provincial government and Dr. Bonnie Henry to court, claiming their terminations are unconstitutional and in violation of the Human Rights Code.
In a petition filed in BC Supreme Court on March 16, the workers claim various personal and religious reasons for not following provincial vaccine mandates requiring employees to get COVID-19 shots. The petitioners include Phyllis Tatlock, Laura Koop, Monika Bielecki, Scott MacDonald, Ana Mateus, Darold Sturgeon, Lori Nelson, Ingeborg Keyser; Lynda Hamley, Melinda Parenteau and Dr. Joshua Nordine. The petition names the Attorney General of British Columbia and Dr. Bonnie Henry, in her capacity as provincial health officer, as respondents.
The petitioners claim that health orders for hospital and residential care workers and other staff violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically guaranteeing freedom of conscience and religion, life, liberty and security of the person, and equality rights. They claim that requiring workers to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment is a “coercive tactic” that “deprives the petitioners of their right to informed consent.” Moreover, they claim that conditions for allowing workers to apply for exemptions to the vaccine mandates are “extremely narrow.”
Tatlock was an operations director for B.C. Cancer under the Provincial Health Services Authority in Prince George. She claims she was fired for refusing to get vaccinated in March 2021, objecting on religious grounds as a Christian and an objection to “state coercion.”
Koop, a nurse practitioner, claims she was fired by the Interior Health Authority after refusing to get vaccinated over “serious concerns about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, mRNA technology and use of fetal tissue in vaccine development.”
Bielecki, an employee health and wellness advisor with Interior Health, claims she was fired for not getting vaccinated over objections to “state coercion that overrides her personal autonomy.”
MacDonald, an art therapist, claims he was fired by the Dr. Peter Centre in Vancouver for refusing the vaccines that he claims were “rushed to market by the pharmaceutical companies.” In addition, he “does not trust the BC Coastal Health Authority to keep its workers’ best interest in mind.”
Mateus, an administrative assistant, claims she was fired by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority over objections to the COVID-19 vaccine, believing “there are too many unanswered questions” about their safety.
Sturgeon was an executive director of medical affairs with Interior Health before he was fired, according to the petition. He refused the vaccine on religious grounds as a Christian and was denied an exemption. Nelson claims she was fired by the Provincial Health Services Authority after refusing the vaccine on medical grounds due to past allergic reactions. Keyser, a communications advisor with Interior Health in Kelowna, refused to get vaccinated over “lack of long-term data” about the vaccines’ effects on pregnant women.
Hamley, a residential support worker at a facility in Nelson, was fired for refusing the vaccine on religious grounds as a Christian, claiming the mandates “put her in the profoundly bewildering position” of keeping her job and violating her “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Parenteau, a midwife in Nelson, claims she lost her job when her hospital privileges were revoked for being unvaccinated due to her objections to “coercion by the state.”
Nordine, a family physician in Kelowna, claims he is a Christian who objects to taking the vaccine on both religious and medical grounds. He claims he has natural immunity after catching the virus and observed many “adverse reactions” in patients after getting vaccinated.
The petitioners seek declarations that public health orders requiring health authority and residential workers to be vaccinated “unjustifiably” infringe upon their Charter rights. The petition’s factual basis has not been tested in court and the B.C. government had not responded to the petition by press time.
