Lawyer Derek From has sent a stern warning to sport facility operators Monday saying they are breaching the law by requiring parents and kids 12 and over to show their vaccine status..A constitutional lawyer for 10 years with the Canadian Constitution Foundation, From is now in private practice at an Airdrie law firm..From was retained by a group of parents who have kids enrolled in youth sports programs in Calgary and the surrounding area..“It is unlawful for your facility to implement REP (Restriction Exemption Program) for youth activities,” From said in his letter to facilities..REP allows businesses to either choose to operate as usual if they implement a vaccine passport program or limit their attendance to one-third of their fire code capacity and abide by a number of other public health restrictions..“Youth sports are supposed to be out of scope for these mandates according to the latest public health order,” From said in an interview with the Western Standard..Last Thursday, public health order #43-2021 was rescinded due to “bad faith behaviour on the part of businesses offering youth activities and rogue municipal governments seeking to increase and stiffen the restrictions enacted by the Government of Alberta,” From states in the letter..In its place, order #45-2021 was enacted making it clear that youth activities are out of the scope of REP. .“This means that facilities that house youth sports are not allowed to use (vaccine) passports. They have to opt out of the passport program,” From said..However, Calgary city council passed a bylaw that came into effect September 23 forcing businesses eligible for the REP to participate without choice including recreation facilities..Calgary bylaw 65M2021 says “any person aged 12 years and older must show identification and either proof of vaccination, proof of a negative COVID-19 test result or a medical exemption from vaccine letter.”.“With (Mayor Naheed) Nenshi running interference on this issue, a lot of people were turned away from a number of facilities over the weekend,” From said..“Essentially, they (city council) have left no one any choice in the municipality of Calgary including hockey rinks, even though it falls out of scope according to the province. Now a bunch of other surrounding communities are falling in line.” .The legal letter demands these facilities stop enforcing any REP-related restrictions associated with youth physical, performance or recreational activities, and begin to follow the clear direction set out by the Alberta government regarding what falls in and out of scope for the REP..“Youth physical activity, performance activity and recreational activity, where all participants are under the age of 18” is listed as outside of the purview of REP. This means that REP is not available for implementation in association with such activities,” the letter states..“Thousands of parents are ready to have this fight for their kids across the province,” From said..“If the letters aren’t enough to change the course for these facilities, we will start suing rinks and even the city (Calgary).”.From said he was sending the letter to Nenshi and Calgary council Monday..WKA-to-AB-Arenas-re-REP-Sept-27-2021.Download.Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
