A longtime federal employee suspended without pay for refusing a COVID-19 vaccination has been awarded back pay and $5,000 in damages, with a labour board ruling Ottawa violated his dignity by enforcing the mandate.Blacklock's Reporter says the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board ruled the Department of Public Safety owed compensation to Mathieu Lemay, a 15-year public servant who was placed on unpaid leave after his request for a religious exemption was denied during the 2021 vaccine mandate.“The grievor is entitled to damages of $5,000 under the Canadian Human Rights Act,” wrote adjudicator Christopher Rootham, saying the award reflected “the loss of dignity and self-worth he incurred by being placed on leave without pay.”Lemay argued receiving a vaccine conflicted with his Christian faith, telling his supervisor it contradicted his belief in God’s authority. “I cannot use medicine, in this case a vaccine, when it is not absolutely necessary to sustain my life, as it shows no faith in God’s power to heal,” he wrote, adding vaccination would amount to renouncing his faith.Treasury Board data show most religious exemption requests were rejected under Ottawa’s pandemic mandates. .Of 2,042 federal employees who sought religious accommodation, only 540 were approved — about 26%.In sworn testimony, Lemay said his career in public service was central to his identity. “My investment in my career was a commitment I made to public service,” he wrote, adding his employer reduced employment to “mere compliance to a policy that infringed my beliefs.”He said those beliefs informed his work ethic and dedication to taxpayers, accusing management of disregarding the values that guided his service.The ruling is one of hundreds involving pandemic-era mandates. In a separate 2025 decision, the same labour board found a federal employer breached the Charter rights of two Christian employees denied religious exemptions..“Being placed on leave without pay because of a sincerely held religious belief interferes with freedom of religion in a way that is more than trivial or insubstantial,” the board wrote, noting it has dealt with “over 350 cases like these ones.”Those cases included a Catholic meteorologist suspended after objecting to vaccines developed using fetal cell lines, and a Pentecostal IT analyst who said he refused all vaccines after becoming a Christian. “I trust God to protect me,” he wrote. “I believe he created me and my immune system.”
