Worker for Coast Guard submitted 20-page letter citing Christian beliefs, Canadian human rights legislation
A federal public sector worker wasn’t entitled to a religious exemption to her employer’s vaccination policy because her objections to the vaccine were secular rather than based on religion or creed, an adjudicator from the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board has ruled.
The worker was employed with the Coast Guard in Sarnia, Ontario, which is part of the federal government’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).
In October 2021, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the availability of vaccines, the federal government enacted a vaccination policy for all core public administration federal public sector employees. The policy required all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or to request accommodation “due to a certified medical contraindication, religion, or any other prohibited ground of discrimination as defined in the Canadian Human Rights Act” by Oct. 29.
However, the worker was on leave until December 2, so when she returned to work her officer in charge sent her a letter informing her of the policy and giving her until Dec. 16 to attest her vaccination status or ask for accommodation. If she didn’t do either, she would have two weeks to attend training on COVID-19 and become vaccinated. If still wasn’t vaccinated by then, she would be placed on administrative leave without pay, effective Dec. 30.
Religious beliefs
The worker submitted a 20-page letter prepared by a paralegal in support of her request, stating that she was a Christian who believed certain things about the vaccine. The letter said that she wasn’t against vaccination in general, but she was opposed to this one because it violated several tenets of her Christian faith. It also referred to legal rights under the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Ontario Health Care Consent Act, 1996, and the Ontario Personal Health Information Protection Act – none of which applied to the DFO as a federally regulated employer – and demanded that the worker be accommodation or else she would claim more than $1 million in damages.
The officer in charge sent the paralegal’s letter to the DFO’s labour relations section, which then forwarded it to the DFO review panel, the body tasked with reviewing accommodation requests made under the vaccination policy.
The worker also sent a letter of her own on Dec. 22 requesting accommodation from the policy based on her “deeply held, sincere and personal beliefs. She stated that she was a Christian who believed: “humanity had a choice;” the vaccine’s “instruction of my DNA, RNA, or molecular structure” was counter to her “God made design;” the vaccine was developed with fetal stem cells, contrary to her anti-abortion belief; she had a right to bodily autonomy; God made her body perfect and she couldn’t alter it unnecessarily; and her private and medical information should be kept as private as possible.
The officer in charge didn’t forward the worker’s letter to the DFO review panel, as it appeared to be mostly cut-and-pasted from the paralegal’s letter – although it didn’t include two beliefs listed by the paralegal, that she believed God will protect her unless He wills otherwise, and that undergoing unnecessary medical tests was contrary to her faith.
Accommodation request rejected
The DFA determined that the worker’s reasons for objecting to the vaccine weren’t based on religion or creed and rejected her request for accommodation. The worker responded by writing that she believed the vaccine was made by “corrupt people,” it had caused harm to many people, it was experimental, and it wasn’t a traditional vaccine.
However, the worker had contracted COVID-19 shortly after her return to work and was off until Jan. 3, 2022. When she came back, she was required to take rapid antigen tests three times per week while she worked irregularly while taking some leave. On Feb. 1, the DFO placed her on unpaid leave.
The vaccine policy was suspended on June 20.
The worker filed a grievance demanding an exemption from the vaccination policy for religious reasons, saying that she believed that her “body should be treated with utmost respect and care” and “accepting a vaccine that conflicts with may conscience would constitute a defilement of this trust.”
Nexus with religion
The adjudicator applied the legal test for religious exemptions as set out in Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, 2004 SCC 47, which requires that an individual demonstrate a practice or belief with a nexus to religion and that the belief is sincerely held. The interference with the religious practice or belief must also be more than trivial or insubstantial.
The adjudicator also identified two central questions: what the worker’s sincere beliefs were, and whether those beliefs had a nexus with religion.
The adjudicator found that the worker’s sincere beliefs were those expressed in her own words from her emails to the DFO and her affidavit submitted during adjudication. These statements were found to be consistent and centred around her sense of conscience and concerns about the impact of the vaccine on her health and well-being.
By contrast, the adjudicator found that the worker had not demonstrated that she sincerely believed all the statements contained in the paralegal’s letter. There were similarities between the paralegal’s submissions and those in other unrelated cases, so only beliefs explicitly confirmed by the worker in her own words could be considered sincere, the adjudicator said.
Vaccine opposition secular
The adjudicator also found that the worker’s sincere beliefs didn’t have a nexus with religion. While the worker identified as a Christian and referenced her faith in her statements, the adjudicator concluded that her objections to vaccination were based on secular and conscientious grounds rather than religious doctrine. Conscientious or personal objections, even if sincerely held, don’t meet the threshold for religious exemption, said the adjudicator.
The adjudicator also addressed specific beliefs raised by the worker, such as opposition to vaccines developed using fetal cell lines and the belief that her body was a temple. However, there was insufficient evidence that the worker sincerely objected to vaccination on the basis of fetal cell lines or changing her body as God made it, as she said herself that she wasn’t opposed to all vaccines, but specifically to the COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, her objections to mRNA vaccines weren’t a reason for non-compliance, as the policy included at least a couple of non-mRNA vaccines, said the adjudicator in finding that the worker’s expressed beliefs were secular rather than religious.
The adjudicator denied the grievance, concluding that the worker wasn’t entitled to a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination policy, as her sincerely held beliefs were found to be secular or based on conscience rather than religion.
