A southern Alberta lab tech who lost her job of ten years for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is applying in federal court for the decision to be overturned..Rebecca Abdo, who lives in the Calgary area, was fired after a decade as a laboratory technologist at Canadian Blood Services in 2021 when she declined to receive the COVID-19 injections..When Canadian Blood Services (CBS) implemented a mandatory vaccination policy in September 2021, it promised to accommodate workers unable to receive the injections for religious reasons, according to Liberty Coalition Canada, whose chief litigator James Kitchen is defending Abdo..Abdo, a Christian, requested a religious exemption, only to have her request denied. When Abdo applied for her religious exemption, CBS stated these were only “personal beliefs." CBS also required Rebecca to provide proof from a “spiritual leader” and insisted the religion must prohibit vaccination generally. CBS placed Rebecca on an “unpaid leave” on November 1, 2021 and fired her two weeks later..Abdo applied for employment insurance, but her claim was denied. The EI commission said she lost her job “because of [her] own misconduct.”.Kitchen argued before the General Division of the Social Security Tribunal in November 2022 that Abdo was entitled to EI benefits. However, the tribunal agreed with the EI Commission that Rebecca’s adherence to her Christian beliefs was misconduct..Abdo and Kitchen appealed the tribunal decision, explaining apparent mistakes by the tribunal, but to no avail. In March 2023, the Appeals Division said the appeal had no chance of success..Rebecca has now filed an application in Federal Court requesting judicial review of what Kitchen calls an “appalling and unlawful decision” of the Social Security Tribunal which heard her case..The Federal Court application argues the tribunal ignored a relevant aspect related to her dismissal, a section of the Employment Insurance Act which states that an employee must be given the “benefit of the doubt” in such situations, and that adhering to sincerely-held religious beliefs is a mere matter of choice..The application also objects to a tribunal member’s comparison of Abdo’s apparent faith-based refusal of the vaccine with cases where employees had been fired for abusing alcohol and failing drug tests.
