A federal labour board has ruled the Department of National Defence wrongly suspended a longtime employee who refused the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds. Blacklock's Reporter says the decision found that sincere religious beliefs were enough to qualify for an exemption.Christopher Rootham, adjudicator with the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board, said the worker’s faith-based objection should have been respected. The ruling was issued in the case of Marvin Castillo, a former Canadian Forces member and civilian employee with more than 25 years of service..Castillo said the mandate forced him to speak about his faith for the first time in the workplace. In a sworn affidavit, he wrote: “I have served both in the Canadian Forces and as a public servant for almost 26 years and never thought it will come the day that I will have to justify my beliefs in order to be able to do what I love doing.”He added that his suspension put at risk not only his savings but also the charitable work he supported abroad, including an orphanage in Tanzania and a family in Guatemala. “The fact I am willing to risk my livelihood … should aid you in dissipating any doubts you may entertain about the sincerity of my belief,” he told his supervisor..In explaining his refusal, Castillo cited Scripture, writing that his body was “the temple of the Holy Ghost” and that altering it through a genetic injection was against his convictions. He also pointed to the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine development, stating that “sin does not have an expiry date.”The board’s decision follows other rulings striking down suspensions tied to vaccine mandates, including cases last May involving a Catholic meteorologist and a Pentecostal IT worker at the National Research Council.The rulings have leaned on a 2004 Supreme Court precedent that said government has no authority to decide matters of religious dogma, a case that upheld Orthodox Jewish tenants’ rights to build prayer shelters despite condo bylaws.
