Many of us felt sorry for restaurant greeters who during the COVID-19 pandemic, had to check your QR code before they could let you in. Customers didn’t like it, they didn’t like it and nor should they have: Whether they liked it or not, they had just become unpaid government enforcers..Fewer people will feel sorry for Air Canada. Nevertheless, when the Government of Canada downloaded responsibility for determining religious exemptions regarding vaccination to the company, the airline was in much the same situation as the greeters — private citizens obliged to enforce government regulations as a condition of doing business. Except that in Air Canada’s case, they could also get sued..A letter to Transport Canada from Air Canada explains. In November 2021, Air Canada’s Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, Marc Barbeau, put the Federal Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, on notice that the federal government’s vaccine mandate was unconstitutional and unworkable. It failed to comply with the Constitution of Canada or with human rights legislation. It would expose Air Canada to litigation and human rights claims..How? The letter complained that Transport Canada’s interim order No. 46 deputized air carriers to assess the merits of religious exemption requests. Essentially, Transport Canada thereby dodged its responsibility to determine who should qualify for a religious exemption to the mandate they had ordered..Barbeau pleaded with Alghabra that the government must retain responsibility for the mandate saying, "Only a uniform centralized process, overseen by the Government, is consistent with the Canadian constitution and legal principles and can ensure a rigorous and consistent application of the exemption…" and "inevitable litigation will then ensue against both the Government and the air carriers to whom responsibility for inquiring into the religious beliefs of passengers is proposed to be delegated…".Barbeau’s concerns about the constitutionality of the mandate are well-founded. While the Constitution of Canada only applies to the actions of government bodies and their agents, the mandate looks as though the federal government was attempting to immunize itself from constitutional and human rights scrutiny by delegating authority to air carriers..Trudeau’s federal government was effectively attempting to avoid the law, bypass the constitution, shirk responsibility, and wash its hands of responsibility..In an August 2021 article, Harvard epidemiologist and biostatistician, Martin Kulldorff, referred to vaccine mandates as “scientific nonsense” and “discriminatory and unethical.”.As we continue to learn more about the inception of the mandate, it appears both Kulldorf’s and Barbeau’s concerns have been borne out, especially since we now know the mandate had little or no basis in science..If we weren’t already living in a lawless time, this revelation alone would be scandalous. No government is permitted to do indirectly what it is forbidden from doing directly, so forcing air carriers to do Transport Canada’s political dirty work should be shocking..Yet against the backdrop of the previous two years, this all seems sadly unremarkable..Barbeau further warned that exemptions would be granted in a haphazard and inconsistent fashion, since air carriers lack the proper expertise to assess such requests. The resulting uneven awarding of exemptions might itself violate human rights law..This legitimate concern demonstrates that when Barbeau wrote to Alghabra, he did not anticipate how difficult it would soon become to receive a religious exemption. The law in Canada protects the right of individuals to express sincerely held religious beliefs in action… Actions like refusing a vaccination..Secular adjudicators must exclusively restrict their assessment to the believer’s sincerity, not the content of the belief. Thus it is not relevant what the Pope, a pastor, or “science” might say about the veracity of any particular religious belief..This is why Barbeau pleaded with Alghabra for the government to maintain oversight of religious exemption requests. Such an assessment is a very individualized process requiring an adjudicator who understands the law, the nature of religious belief, and who is skilled at judging the sincerity of the believer requesting an exemption..This is a nightmarish task to thrust upon a company lacking the staff qualified to do such work. Barbeau’s letter brought to the surface yet another instance of the Trudeau government showing callous disregard, nay, utter contempt, for both the Constitution of Canada and the individuals it purportedly protects..Sadly, we now also know that Air Canada fared little better as it devoutly erred on the side of appeasing its regulator, Transport Canada, by denying almost every religious exemption request.
