Loading ...Jurors’ vaccine status ‘private and personal,’ British Columbia judge rules
AND…We have Precedence
Conservative candidate Erin O’Toole has expressed his opposition to mandated vaccines for domestic Canadian travelers. He said, “vaccines are not a political issue. To try and make them one is dangerous and irresponsible.”
However, O’Toole has also said prefers a regular rapid testing regime to keep workplaces safe from COVID-19. O’Toole believes that vaccine mandates are not acceptable, but that Canadians who choose not to take the vaccine will still need to participate in some sort of testing procedure in order to travel the country by way of a federally regulated industry.
This is not the first time that a government-regulated industry has been told it must comply with a vaccination requirement from Public Health. In 2018, the Ontario Nurses’ Association won a decision on the controversial vaccinate or mask policy, striking down the policy in effect at St. Michael’s Hospital and several other hospitals that form the Toronto Academic Health Science Network. Nurses could have been forced to don a mask if they chose not to vaccinate.
A similar case was won for Ontario nurses in 2015, as well. The arbitrator of the 2015 decision stated that “the mask requirement amounts to compulsory disclosure of personal medical information.”
Consistent in each decision, as well as in the recent decision by Justice Gomery, is that the medical privacy of the individual is reason enough to reconsider mandating vaccines for government employees, including jurors.