Historic BC court case on COVID vaccine exemptions, Day #2 Summary

In what appears to be one of the most confusing public health defenses ever put forward, the British Columbia government is arguing that because it was not actually enforcing its own public guidelines, but was actually working according to other, different guidelines which had not been made public, the three plaintiffs involved in the current court case should have known to make a new request for exemption to COVID vaccine requirements.

“The Public Health Office was doing was clearly something inconsistent with the orders….which we did not know before we received their letter explaining this,” says Christine Van Geyn, Litigation Director for the Canadian Constitution Fund.

On October 4th, a British Columbia has court rejected the government’s claim that the case against its COVID vaccine passport regime is “moot” and should not be heard. The case, brought by the Canadian Constitution Foundation on behalf of three litigants whose life and/or health was damaged by BC’s COVID passport system, is now being heard.

The BC vaccine passport policy restricted entry to certain public spaces to only those people who could prove they have received two doses of a COVID vaccine. While the vaccine passport policy is not currently in force, BC’s Public Health Officer has announced that it may return during the fall and winter respiratory virus season.

“Yesterday, as you know, the Government tried to fight us on even having this appeal heard at all. They had said that the appeal is moot and should be dismissed but they failed and this is one of those few rare cases where we’re actually going to be hearing the appeal in a COVID-era case about vaccines on the merits of the case. This is a really big deal.”